NHS facing ‘much worse’ pressure than during peak of Covid pandemic
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Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, has said the NHS is in a worse state now than it was at the peak of the Covid pandemic. He said medical staff are “pressurised like never before” and called on politicians to listen to NHS workers.
Speaking to Sky News, Dr Cooksley said: “There has never been a greater recognition amongst all staff that our current situation is worse than it has ever been.
“And I know that people watching this will say, ‘well every winter you have doctors on that say that this winter is terrible, that it’s normal winter pressures’.
“But there is a complete acceptance from all colleagues now that this is different from all previous winters – and we need urgent action now.”
The doctor warned that current situation at the NHS is “much worse han we experienced under the Covid pandemic at its peak”.
He said: “We need to think carefully about how we can manage this and I think we need some urgent actions.”
The urgent call comes at a time when the country’s leading accident and emergency doctor has said 300 to 500 people in Britain are dying each week because of delays and problems within the NHS.
Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said to Times Radio: “We need to be in a situation where we cannot just shrug our shoulders and say this winter was terrible, let’s do nothing until next winter.
“We need to increase our capacity within our hospitals, we need to make sure that there are alternative ways so that people aren’t all just funnelled into the ambulance service and emergency department.
“We cannot continue like this – it is unsafe and it is undignified.”
Dr Boyle added: “We need to actually get a grip of this, we don’t know about the waiting time figures because they don’t come out for a couple of weeks – I’d be amazed if they’re not the worst ever that we’ve seen over this December.”
According to NHS figures from November, 38,000 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to accident and emergency, compared to around 10,000 in 2021.
In Swindon, one patient spent 99 hours waiting for a bed at Great Western Hospital last week.
One NHS worker at Greater Western Hospital said to the Mirror: “We’re broken and nobody is listening”.
In a leaked email, the same hospital’s chief medical officer, Jon Westbrook, told staff: “We are seeing case numbers and [sickness] that we have not seen previously in our clinical careers.”
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In Oxford, there were reports of a toddler pictured curled up in a chair after waiting for a bed for hours at John Radcliffe hospital.
The little girl’s Dad said the NHS was currently “a broken system”.
Dr Cooksley has said that British politicians need to listen to medical staff and declare a national NHS major incident in response to the emergency, which would mean all four UK countries cooperating to meet the demand the NHS is facing.
He said: “The current situation in urgent and emergency care is shocking. It is in a critical state for patients and it is an extremely difficult for healthcare staff, who are unable to deliver the care they want to.
“Political leaders across the UK need to listen, meet urgently and accept the need to declare a national NHS major incident.
“The outcome must be a four-nation emergency strategy that results in short-term stabilisation, medium-term improvement and long-term growth. The grave situation we are in means it will be a long journey.”
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