A Sefton councillor said “widespread” chaos in the NHS was at risk of being “swept under the carpet” by changes to targets around waiting times.
Vice chair of the borough’s adult social care and health scrutiny committee, Cllr Greg Myers, made the remarks during a discussion about NHS challenges in Sefton during a meeting held at Bootle Town Hall last night.
According to a report presented by Sefton Place director of strategic partnerships Steven Williams, among the “challenging circumstances” being faced by the NHS nationally and locally is a significant rise in demand for services.
Mr Williams said there had been “record attendances” at accident and emergency in recent weeks, a trend also seen across primary care, community care and mental health services.
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He said staffing issues and record vacancies was compounding the demand issue, with recent industrial action and the “continued recovery” from the pandemic also impacting upon capacity.
Mr Williams said that referrals for suspected cancer was at 120% of pre pandemic levels, a significant rise. With diagnosis rates remaining consistent, this means an overall higher number of patients with cancer being identified – a situation likely to result in further pressures on demand for treatments.
He said NHS England has recently introduced changes to targets for waiting times, which has included reducing the number of targets as well as reducing expectations in a number of areas including emergency care and ambulance responsiveness.
Mr Williams added: “What we’re seeing in the revised targets is much more focus on system flow.”
As part of that new focus, more than £3m has been allocated for joint health and social care funding alongside initiatives such as the development of an integrated frailty service.
Cllr Myers said he had “growing frustration every time we get this sort of report.”
He said: “I realise there’s a huge amount of effort going in from staff and they share our frustrations but it seems to me we are failing our residents with a lot of this and it’s hugely concerning.”
Cllr Myers asked what was behind the “record demand” in urgent care.
Mr Williams said the increase in demand was “symptomatic of the point around flow.”
He said: “If we don’t get the access in the appropriate parts of the system then our residents and patients are presenting at accident and emergency when can’t access the service where they would want to.”
He added that the increase in demand was “across the board” and due to “multifaceted issues”
Cllr Myers said: “It seems to me that we seem to have widespread problems here and if that’s the case and while I appreciate there’s a lot going on, we are not hearing much about timescales for these problems to be resolved.
“I can’t quite understand why we’re messing about with and reducing targets and monitoring less things.”
He added: “It feels like things are being swept under the carpet a bit for the public.”
Mr Williams said targets were set by NHS England and had been amended following a recent review.
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