The healthcare system is facing “unbearable” pressure with “the quality of care being compromised”
The group that speaks on behalf of the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has issued a stark warning over the current state of the NHS.
In a public statement, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, has warned that services are currently facing “unbearable” pressure, and they expect ongoing critical incidents in the next three months as “the quality of care being compromised”.
Mr Taylor warns that things are so bad in some areas that ward staffing numbers are now well below minimum levels, hospitals are running out of oxygen cylinders, and some patients are waiting for over two days just for a hospital bed.
“High rates of flu and Covid which have more than doubled, ongoing issues with delayed hospital discharges which is leaving over 12,000 medically fit patients stuck in hospital”, he explains.
Figures quoted by the organisation warn that 130,000 unfilled jobs and a decade-long lack of investment in services is causing an elective backlog which continues to grow past 7 million people.
Immediate action is needed.
The NHS Confederation is calling on the government to take immediate action, warning all parts of the NHS, including primary, community, and mental health care, are under strain.
Mr Taylor explained, “Health leaders are working together and doing all they can, but this is only crisis management. This situation is also putting off recovery and improvement measures that had started to take effect before winter. This will have inevitable longer-term impacts, including further increasing demands on services.
“We need the government to commit to do everything within its power to prevent the NHS from entering the next winter in this same fragile state that has sadly become the norm over recent winters.”
With further NHS strikes looming in coming weeks, Mr Taylor insists the first step is for the government to tackle the growing health and care workforce crisis by “negotiating with the unions on pay so we can avoid more damaging strike action when services will be at its most fraught.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been unusually quiet in the past few weeks despite a mounting number of NHS trusts declaring critical incidents – meaning patient care is compromised.
