Can the NHS’s ‘worst ever crisis’ actually be fixed?

Chronic staff shortages, worsening patient backlogs, dysfunctional social care and record AE waiting times are pushing the NHS into an ever-deepening crisis the government is struggling to address.

What was already gearing up to be a “winter of discontent” – thanks, in part, to rocketing cases of flu – grew “colder this morning” as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced the first strike in its 106-year history, said Politico’s London Playbook.

Hospital staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will strike over pay on 15 and 20 December, in “the biggest show of industrial action the NHS has ever seen”. 

What did the papers say?

While both the nursing union and the government are blaming each other for a breakdown in talks, a worsening crisis in an already overstretched NHS could mean it is Rishi Sunak and his government “who emerges from the wreckage with the lasting damage”, said Politico. 

Figures from NHS England show that waiting times for routine treatment are reaching record levels, with some 7.1 million people waiting for care – almost one in eight of the population.

Patients are now facing a median waiting time of 14 weeks, while more than 400,000 people have waited over a year for treatment. This is “around 308 times” the number of people waiting over a year for treatment in September 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, said the British Medical Association (BMA). Patients needing treatment should be seen within 18 weeks, according to NHS England guidelines.

AE waiting times have also “rocketed” said the BMA, due to a combination of “ongoing pressure on services, the backlog of care and chronic workforce shortages”. Waiting times have now reached “record highs” with the number of patients waiting over 12 hours for hospital admission “over 60 times as high” as it was pre-pandemic in October 2019. 

The “biggest problem” facing the NHS is “chronic shortages of qualified staff”, with more than 130,000 vacancies currently in the health service, said The Times. But the crisis in both routine surgeries and AE waiting times is also being “exacerbated” by gaps in social care, said the Daily Mail, as an increasing number of patients, who “are medically fit for discharge but have nowhere else to go”, are occupying hospital beds.  

What next?

Doctors and nurses becoming “more flexible” in their job descriptions and breaking down “barriers between roles” may be one solution to the staffing crisis, according to one government adviser, said The Times. Bill Morgan has argued for the development of “sub-consultants” and even entirely new medical professions, as well as possibly reducing the time it takes doctors and nurses to train. 

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/science-health/958644/can-the-nhss-worst-ever-crisis-actually-be-fixed