I’ve just done a short slot on the local radio, talking about the ‘crisis in A&E’. It was based on the new report by the Health Select Committee that highlights the issues, but says very little that is new about their solution. We know that A&E is the ‘safety valve’ for the system, we know that the patients are confused about its role, and we know that fewer and fewer doctors choose to work there.
However, the solutions mentioned by the Committee are almost entirely structural and unimaginative: beefing up the Urgent Care Boards from small talking shops into larger talking shops really isn’t the answer; neither is a vague exhortation that Ambulance Trusts should become ‘care providers on their own right’.
Perhaps it would be helpful to reframe the issues, and consider them in a slightly different way. If we look at A&E from the perspectives of hospitals providers, of those working in the community, and of patients themselves, we might get a more rounded view of the problems and maybe their solutions.
Hospitals are under tremendous pressure; they have to see patients referred to them within eighteen weeks, admit acutely ill patients from casualty in under four hours, and do it all within ever tighter financial and quality constraints. To deal with the front door issues posed by A&E, they have introduced more and more services there, so that for many patients, turning up at the emergency department offers a ‘one stop shop’ solution to their problems. The paradox is that the more that is provided at A&E, the more the service will be used.
Clearly, the corollary of reducing services at the front door is probably not a viable option in political or practical terms, but we should at least be aware of the dynamics of supply and demand in this setting, and think twice before we get seduced by more manifestations of the M25 effect.
From a community services perspective, it’s worth asking what the incentives and disincentives are to sending people to A&E: in the middle of the night, at an ill patient’s bedside, when relatives are panicking, no other care facilities are available, and the hospital light is on (to use Stephen Dorrell’s image), why shouldn’t the ‘on call’ clinician send the patient into hospital?
The presence in NHS 111 of a telehealth service that seems to do no more than signpost the road to A&E doesn’t really help either; one of the reasons we have trained professionals is to cope with risk and uncertainty in a way that an algorithmic system simply cannot do, and offering a cut price alternative was predicted by everyone but the party politicians not to work.
From the poor benighted patients’ point of view, they are faced with the emotive issues of ill health, with little or no information, often on their own, fed by a media diet of Holby City on the telly, and instant gratification in all other aspects of their lives; they also know that if they call their GP they will have a battle to be seen promptly, and if they ring NHS 111, they will probably be told to go to A&E; so once again, what’s the disincentive for them?
Complex issues cannot usually be solved with simplistic sticking plasters, so whatever single concrete suggestions are made will not be enough; indeed, given our track record, playing around with the system (any system) in a ‘quick fix’ sort of way often compounds the problems, and puts different parts of the system under strain.
However, applying a deliberately opaque and undefined solution, whilst harder to quantify and assess, does allow the system (and particularly individual professionals within the system) to use such a solution constructively and effectively, and to feel more involved in that solution; ownership is a recurring theme in all the current manipulations of the public sector.
Thus, giving Acute Trusts a new process measure to meet, such as a new trolley time target would merely stimulate a new ‘gaming’ solution (what is the real purpose of medical assessment units, for example, if not to take the strain off the A&E four-hour target?). However, contracting with the CCGs for an outcome measure of reduced admissions (and giving them control of the resources currently involved) would allow them to be inventive and innovative in their approach, involving their own professionals, and letting them see the direct benefit to patients, to hospitals, and yes, to their bank balances too.
The GPs who are involved in running CCGs aren’t bad at understanding health and illness, and the ways in which patients are involved (or not) in their care; they are also infinitely practical and pragmatic, so if given the tools to create a solution to a problem with which they empathized, then we might begin to see some progress.
Without their ‘buy in’, no single prescription can ever work, even for Bruce Keogh and Stephen Dorrell.
Dr Jonathan Shapiro is an a former GP with wide experience in clinical, managerial, and academic roles. He works with policy makers, organisations and individuals to develop effective, sustainable systems with integrated clinical and managerial functions You can email Dr Shapiro on jsx@me.com.
