Almost half of parents with under-18s do not feel confident they can access timely day-to-day medical care for their children in the face of the current NHS crisis, a poll suggests. The survey of 1,028 users of the parenting website Mumsnet also found 40% are not confident they could access emergency care for their children if they needed it.
Meanwhile, a third (33%) said they had been unable to get a GP appointment for their child in the previous three months, while 16% took their child or children to A&E because they felt there was no other way of getting treatment. Of those parents who did take their children to A&E, nearly half (49%) waited more than four hours to be admitted, discharged or transferred.
Meanwhile, 70% of parents said they had waited longer than five minutes when calling 111, and more than half (51%) said they have experienced difficulty generally when trying to use the service for their children. When asked who was responsible for the current crisis in the NHS, 86% said the present government.
