Ministers are under mounting pressure to respond to “intolerable and unsustainable” pressure facing the NHS. Senior doctors described the NHS as on a knife edge, with some A&Es in a “complete state of crisis”. The Liberal Democrats called for Parliament to be recalled early, while Labour criticized the government’s management of the health service.
The government said NHS staff do an “incredible job” and it recognized the pressures facing medics. A spokesperson said the NHS and social care had been backed with up to £14.1bn additional funding over the next two years. Hospitals are experiencing soaring demand, which experts believe is in part driven by winter illnesses like flu and Covid. Some 13% of hospital beds in England are filled with people with Covid or flu, NHS England figures showed.
In some places, like Shropshire and Gloucestershire, people are being advised to only visit A&E in extreme circumstances. In recent days, a number of hospitals have declared critical incidents suggesting they cannot function as usual due to extraordinary pressure.
According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), the NHS is facing the worst winter for A&E waits on record. Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said it was “completely inexplicable” that no government ministers had “raised their head or shown their face to say exactly what they are doing to grip this crisis”. He claimed the NHS was “actively deterring” people from going to A&E “because they are overwhelmed”. “And I think that’s the sense of jeopardy which is frightening so many people across the country,” he told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme.
The Liberal Democrat MP Daisy Cooper said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “must declare a major incident”. “This is a national crisis and the country will never forgive the government if they refuse to recall Parliament.” MPs are due back at Westminster next Monday following their Christmas break.
Professor Phil Banfield, chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) – which represents doctors, called on the government to “step up and take immediate action”. He said the survival of Britain’s health service was on a knife edge and claimed patients were needlessly dying because of a political choice.
He described the current situation in the NHS as “intolerable and unsustainable”. NHS England chief strategy officer, Chris Hopson, urged caution when asked about people who may be dying as a result of issues in the health service. He warned against “jumping to conclusions about excess mortality rates and their cause without a really full and detailed look at the evidence”.
Stay home advice
Amid rising cases of Flu, Covid and strep A, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued advice urging people to stay home if unwell, and wear a mask if they have to go out. Prof Susan Hopkins, the UKHSA’s chief medical adviser, also asked parents to keep children off school if they are unwell and have a fever.
A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “NHS staff do an incredible job and we recognise the pressures the NHS is facing following the impact of the pandemic. “That’s why we’ve backed the NHS and social care with up to £14.1 billion additional funding over the next two years and this winter we have provided an extra £500 million to speed up hospital discharge and free up beds. “We also awarded a 9.3% pay rise to the lowest earners in the NHS last year. “The health secretary and ministers have met with unions several times and have been clear their door remains open to further discuss how we can work together to improve the working lives of NHS staff.”
