The BMA has begged the Government to inject emergency funding to reduce pressures on the NHS, amid warnings they are causing hundreds of patient deaths each week.
Council chair Professor Phil Banfield said this comes as the current situation is ‘intolerable and unsustainable’ for both ‘our patients and the hard-working staff desperately trying to keep up with incredibly high levels of demand’.
In a message to the Government, Professor Banfield argued that ‘is just not true that the cost of resolving this mess cannot be afforded by this country’.
‘This is a political choice and patients are dying unnecessarily because of that choice,’ he said.
The message comes as the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine warned that hundreds of patients could be dying every week related to pressures.
Dr Adrian Boyle told Times Radio that ‘somewhere between 300-500 people are dying as a consequence of delays and problems with urgent and emergency care each week’.
Professor Banfield said: ‘The Government must step up and take immediate action. Without intervention, waiting lists will continue to grow, patients will continue to suffer, and staff will continue to leave.
‘The future of the NHS is balanced on a knife-edge; it is solely within Government’s gift to pull this back from the brink.’
In a ‘back to school’ advisory message yesterday, the UK Health Security Agency warned that flu and Covid are ‘currently circulating at high levels‘ and ‘are likely to continue to increase in coming weeks’.
‘High numbers of scarlet fever caused by group A streptococcus, also continue to be reported,’ it added.
An accompanying message from UKHSA chief medial adviser Professor Susan Hopkins said children should be kept home from school or nursery if they are unwell or have a fever to reduce the spread of viruses.
She added that people should also aim to stay away from healthcare settings when feeling unwell.
She said: ‘Adults should also try to stay home when unwell and if you do have to go out, wear a face covering. When unwell don’t visit healthcare settings or visit vulnerable people unless urgent.’
NHS England warned on Friday that hospital bed occupancy was ‘particularly high’, at 93% compared to 86% the same week in the previous year.
It linked this to ‘viruses re-circulate after a hiatus during the pandemic’, with 3,746 patients a day in hospital with flu in the week leading up to Christmas, including 267 in critical care beds.
The week ending 26 December 2021 there were only 34 patients in hospital with flu, two of whom were in in critical care, NHS England added.
Pressures also remained on NHS 111, with 599,622 calls in the week leading up to Christmas.
Meanwhile, GPs had to stop routine appointments earlier in the week after becoming overwhelmed with respiratory infections-related demand, including strep A.
READERS' COMMENTS [11]
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No amount of money would make me reverse my decision to walk on 23/12/22
BMA et Al can ask for as much money as they want but it won’t solve 2 fundamental issues a) comment above b) not enough competent persons to do qualification appropriate job
My only new year wish is me, my family & friends remain well & avoid the NHS full stop.
36 years GP experience/knowledge lost
Yes, exactly, what does ‘immediate action’ mean in the NHS? For the huge amounts they get paid, where is Amanda Pritchard, so-called Chief Executive of NHSE; where is Steve Barclaybanker, Health Secretary; where is the Blue Party PM Rashy Sanuk, with all his personal wealth, does it really matter to him how the NHS is doing, easily affording private healthcare? What are Chief Executives of PCTs doing? Anything much? notable by their absence, ‘use or ornament’ is a good question (with 3 weeks festive holidays for politicians and the like!), any signs of action from any of them? President of Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, is at work and he knows there are not enough hospital beds and has declared this to the media rightly, and 300 to 500 patients per week are dying before they get properly admitted to a hospital bed. That’s 26,000 deaths per year that should not happen! he rightly calls it a ‘National Scandal’. This Blue Party government is causing deaths: Scandalous and an epidemic of avoidable deaths. Where is the action from Pritchard, Barclaybanker and Sanuk? None. Bad Karma happens when you underresource public services and the NHS (and you take long holidays and don’t act).
Yep, chickens nicely roosting!! And even the goodwill, far less resources, truly drained.
As a tax payer, without non existent capacity, suspect money in the absence of radical reform is a waste of time.
BMA or whoever really should be coming up with a Plan B, and I suggest it might be better to design a service than leave it to others and have it imposed by default.
Politicians, even our friend the Chancellor who has espoused his seeing the light, haven’t got the bottle to address the issue. Hopefully, they will be held to account at some point.
A hefty dose of reality is awaiting in the wings, as said above, fingers crossed, family and friends don’t need the NHS in the interim.
The entitled minority (you know what I mean), media attacks, “penance ” from the politicians, even before the organisations that should have known better GMC,CQC, NHSE have all contributed but the chances of any insight/contrition is zilch.
It’s too late for me, but for those beleaguered colleagues getting battered on the front line, hang in, your day in the sun will come, don’t feel guilty about it either, you have more than deserved it!
A decade or more of under investment in the NHS and Public sector resulting in no good will and an undervalued leaving workforce(not just the NHS),There is no way of relieving pressure we are in a race to the bottom. Nothing to relieve pressure.
Forgot about “goodwill” ask the Trust staff that got paid a bonus and then Trust clawed it back!!
Really is a piss poor performance from our supposed leaders
”piss poor performance from our supposed leaders”
sadly appear happy to take the gongs and goodies that leadership inevitably brings
woefully late and reactive when it mattered
run rings around by an otherwise hapless government but who nonetheless have an alternative plan that for NHS which may mirror the arrangements for utilities and see profit for share holders and arms length NHS for HMG…?
might be wrong of course ?!!
If you look at those countries with good health and social care with high staff retention (Denmark Sweden) they are all high tax economies. You get what you pay for. You could solve demanc issues immediately by charging for GP and not AE A&E attendances at a level higher than private physios, private chiropodists, opticians etc to push the non essential ‘stuff’ out of the NHS
“if you look at those countries with good health . . . they are all high tax . . ..”.
Healthcare pretty good in Switzerland; high tax?
Private health insurance is a legal requirement in Switzerland. The state provides virtually no health care funding
35 years of medicine-24 years a GP – exhausted and broken. Stepped away wracked with guilt – but GPs goodwill at cost of personal well-being no longer enough to hold the frontline. I read Guernsey charges £55/- per GP appt and £32/- for a nurse contact- online GP for £25-£32/- widely available – media guides public vilification of the GP. Privatisation is alive and thriving
goodwill went out of the window when ken clarke (remember him ?) made some abrasive comments about “doctors reaching nervously for their wallet”, and his famous comment “i want to see general practices run like small businesses”.
these are the politicians who expect the taxpayer to fund wallpaper at over £100 a roll, draining their moat, and repainting a duckhouse !!
i suggest this sort of activity is bordering on fraud, and you should have no qualms at all in declining unpaid work.
“pro bono” work that YOU feel is for the good of a patient is, of course, entirely between you, your sanity, and your bank manager. but it is certainly NOT something i will be blackmailed or guilt tripped into doing !