A lot of people are starting to get very worried about whether there will be an NHS winter crisis this year.
NHS winter crisis: the signs are not good
The summer months are traditionally a quieter time in the service, but that hasn’t been the case this year.
In fact, we have just had the busiest summer ever for NHS A&E departments in England, the NHS waiting lists grew three months in a row (now sitting somewhere around a staggering 7.6 million cases in England alone), and it was reported recently that millions of people are having to wait longer than a fortnight to see their GP.
It’s not a good starting point as we get into the colder months. NHS pressures tend to ramp up during the winter, because of a higher burden of respiratory illnesses in the population.
We’ll often hear about flu in the newspapers, or during the last few years, the rates of coronavirus (Covid-19). Media outlets are writing about a “tripledemic” now too; warning about the potential combined impacts of flu, Covid-19, and RSV.
This is hugely concerning, because the NHS doesn’t have much spare capacity in order to absorb higher levels of clinical need. Politicians implemented “efficiency savings” in the NHS over a number of years which mean many of our NHS hospitals run at a very high bed occupancy during busy periods; much higher than the accepted safe level of 85%.
It means that when things get busy, they can very quickly feel unsafe.
That’s why we have NHS winter crises almost every year now. When the population becomes sicker, the NHS struggles to cope.
A&E departments become overcrowded, healthcare workers are forced to care for patients in unsuitable environments like corridors, GPs face unbelievable pressures, and sometimes people call for ambulances which are severely delayed or never arrive at all.
Systemic pressures meeting in tandem
When this happens, it is horrifying.
We read the headlines about an NHS winter crisis and watch terrible scenes of reporters talking to exhausted NHS staff, or relatives explaining in detail their terrifying, awful experiences when a loved one has attempted to seek treatment, but wasn’t able to receive it in a safe, timely manner.
Too often, these situations are treated like a one-off. A tragic incident, never to be repeated. Unfortunate, horrible, isolated occurrences.
But that’s not really accurate; these situations happen because of systemic pressures upon the NHS which are predictable, often predicted by experts, and those predictions are routinely ignored.
They’re probably ignored because fixing the problems in the NHS is expensive and complicated, and politicians have multiple demands on their attention and time, and frankly because in recent years, the Conservative Party seems to have been intent on decimating the NHS instead of shoring it up.
But we need something different now, from the new Labour Party government. Finally, we need politicians to start listening to experts in time, and implementing the necessary policies to keep the public safe when things get busier.
Labour must end this cycle
They have no time to lose, because with every day that passes, we move closer to another NHS winter crisis. There is no excuse for delays, when delays can result in suffering and lost lives.
Crowded conditions in A&E departments can be dangerous for patients. Care in unsuitable environments like corridors or non-clinical areas can be dangerous too, and undignified, and completely unacceptable in a country where the funds could be found to sort all of this out.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
It didn’t used to be like this, and we must stop tolerating the excuses from politicians about why the situation is not being fixed.
The demise of the NHS is not a tragic inevitability, but the systematic demise of a public service which has been insufficiently funded, and whose staff have been treated terribly, causing a mass exodus of skilled professionals.
We need to push our new government to face facts, and take on the responsibility of providing equal, comprehensive care within the NHS. It’s already October, and the new government must tackle a potential NHS winter crisis immediately.
There’s no excuse, because every person who relies upon the NHS deserves much better than this.
Featured image via Keep Our NHS Public
