A&E departments 'absolutely full to bursting', top medic says
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Around half of accident and emergency departments, polled by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), have said they are "full to bursting" this Christmas. The vice-president of the RCEM, Dr Ian Higginson, told Sky News' Gareth Barlow on Christmas Eve that the situation for the NHS in the UK is "pretty grim" at the moment.
The group, representing emergency doctors, put a call out to senior managers on Friday night. Dr Higginson said half responded and "all but two of them said that the emergency departments were absolutely full to bursting". "Normally just before Christmas, we'd expect a bit of a lull. So I'm afraid things are looking pretty difficult out there for our patients and for our staff," he added.
The NHS has warned that hospitals are under severe pressure because of winter flu cases and a so-called "quad-demic", combining respiratory infections with norovirus. Commenting on the challenges facing the NHS, Dr Higginson said: "We simply don't have enough beds in our hospitals for patients who are admitted as emergencies.
"We don't have enough staff for those beds and we don't have any headroom at all. So if something like flu hits as it has done, it makes a bad situation even worse.". Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player. . England 'about 10,000 beds short'.
Dr Higginson added he believes the answer is "strategic solutions and strategic investment". He said: "In England alone, we reckon we're about 10,000 beds short in our hospitals to deal with the predictable, urgent and emergency care... the equivalent of approximately two wards in every hospital.".
