The winter crisis in the NHS is only set to get worse, as doctors across the UK continually express their concern about keeping patients safe under such pressured conditions. Bed pressures, compounded by a lack of social care, are leading to longer waits in A&E, with more patients waiting over 12 hours for a bed. This dire situation has meant that now urgent operations, including for cancer, are being cancelled.
Dr Jenny Vaughan DAUK Law and Policy Officer speaks to BBC Newsnight
Emails seen by The Doctors’ Association UK from senior managers at NHS hospitals reveal a service that is running out of beds, and the despair of those trying to sort it out.
The clinical director at one hospital in Bangor in North Wales said this was “the worst start to a day in… 13 years,” and that meant staff “will have to be risky”. The Royal Oldham Hospital’s Director of Operations said they were facing “one of the worst predicted overnight bed positions that I have ever known in any hospital throughout my career”.
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“In the community we are hearing from GPs who are having to pick up the pieces. Patients are being discharged into the community, earlier than they should be. There’s open admission about that being described as ‘risky’ by the Chairman in North Wales in one of the hospital. ”
In this segment for BBC Newsnight Dr Deb Cohen explores how emergency departments across England are struggling, and what the impact has been on patients.
Catch up with the full piece on BBC Newsnight
