NHS patients are suffering “appalling” waiting times with some UK accident and emergency departments in a “complete state of crisis”, a leading health official warned on Monday, as the government said reducing pressure on the service was its “top priority”.
Dr Ian Higginson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which monitors standards in A&E departments, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, that some people were waiting days before being treated.
“The waits being experienced by patients currently are appalling, so we are hearing of patients who are in our emergency departments waiting to be admitted now for up to four days and it used to be four hours,” he said.
Speaking later on BBC Radio Five Live, Higginson added that some emergency departments were in a “complete state of crisis” warning that doctors were now “unable to provide care at the standard” they would like.
His comments echoed warnings by other health officials over the weekend about the dire state of the health service as a combination of rising Covid and flu cases, pandemic backlogs and staff vacancies intensified pressure on an already strained NHS.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the RCEM, said that A&E waiting times this winter were “much worse than in previous years”. He estimated that between 300 and 500 people were dying “as a consequence of delays and problems with urgent and emergency care each week”.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, warned that the health service was now facing “equivalent levels of pressure” seen during the pandemic. Meanwhile, Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, an organisation which represents staff working in acute medicine, called on the government to “declare a national NHS major incident”.
According to official guidance, 95 per cent of ambulance handovers should take place within 30 minutes of a patient arriving at hospital. But figures from NHS England published last month revealed that about one-third of patients in England were forced to wait more than 30 minutes.
The pressures on the health service come ahead of a fresh wave of strikes by nurses, paramedics and ambulance drivers.
Members of the Royal College of Nursing, who walked out for the first time in their history in December and are demanding a 19 per cent pay rise, will stage further industrial action on January 18 and 19. Unison has confirmed that ambulance workers at five NHS trusts in England will strike on January 11 and January 23.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said in his New Year’s message that the government had “taken decisive action” to support the NHS by increasing funding and recruitment.
“I’m absolutely clear that the prime minister treats this as a top priority,” education minister Robert Halfon told the BBC. “We’re increasing the NHS capacity by the equivalent of 7,000 beds, spending an extra £500mn to speed up hospital discharge and improve capacity. There is an extra £150mn for the ambulance service.”
The health department added in a statement: “We recognise the pressures the NHS is facing following the impact of the pandemic and are working tirelessly to ensure people get the care they need, backed by up to £14.1bn additional funding for health and social care over the next two years.”