Health Secretary ‘ashamed’ as pressure leads to critical incidents in hospitals
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The Health Secretary has said he feels “ashamed” at the experiences of some patients in the NHS, admitting that some patients are being taken to hospital “to die” because the right care is not available when they need it. It comes after a number of NHS trusts declared critical incidents due to “exceptionally high demands” in emergency departments, with a patient at one hospital forced to wait 50 hours to be admitted to a ward.
Wes Streeting said that he felt “emotional” to hear about long waits and patients being passed from ambulance to ambulance. Mr Streeting said that flu is a “big problem” and was causing “extraordinary pressure” in hospitals. And the nation’s top emergency doctor told the PA news agency that the emergency care system is “overwhelmed” and this flu season is the “straw that is breaking the camel’s back”.
Hospitals in Northamptonshire, Cornwall, Liverpool, Hampshire, Birmingham and Plymouth have declared critical incidents. East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust also declared the first critical incident in its history due to a combination of “significant patient demand, pressure within local hospitals and flooding”.
Non-urgent patients have been warned they will face long waits in A&E and have been urged to “consider other options”, such as contacting their GP, visiting a pharmacy or calling NHS 111. Speaking on LBC Radio, Mr Streeting said: “It breaks my heart because… I’ve seen this when I’ve been shadowing the ambulance service on ride outs – we are taking people in ambulances to emergency departments to die because then there isn’t the right care available at the right time in the right place, including end-of-life care.”.
