A Liverpool woman has revealed she faced a 75-week wait for an outpatient appointment after visiting hospital.
Liz Parsons said the NHS system “is broken” after being told she would have to wait almost a year and a half to get a follow-up appointment after she was admitted to hospital in December last year. Mrs Parsons, a Labour councillor for Norris Green, made the admission to Liverpool Council’s social care and health committee as members discussed pressures on the health service.
Cllr Parsons said after falling ill around Christmas last year, she was admitted to an assessment unit. On that occasion, such was the pressure on hospital staff, she was taken into an office to have an observation undertaken “because there was nowhere else to be seen.”
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After being discharged, Cllr Parsons said she sought a follow-up outpatient appointment and was told she would have to wait 17 months. The Labour member said had she elected to go private, she would have been seen in three days.
Committee chair Cllr Roz Gladden, said when she accompanied her husband, Lord Mayor Cllr Roy Gladden, to hospital earlier this year “corridors were lined with people” describing the scene as “distressing.” She said: “It’s not acceptable this can be allowed to happen.” Last month, the British Medical Association (BMA) announced a three-day walk out by junior doctors across England, claiming they had been left with no choice.
Medical professionals will leave their posts at hospitals, including many across Liverpool, for 72 hours between March 13 and 15. Carole Hill, NHS Liverpool director of strategy, integration and communication, told the committee the strike “carries significant risk” and was “bound to have an impact on planned care.”
She said: “It will be very tough over those days but the most important care will be delivered.” Ms Hill said there had been a “spike” at Aintree University Hospital in the last seven days and officials were assessing their day to day response on how to manage.
She added how there was a “bigger piece of work to do” to improve primary care and prevent additional admissions to hospital. Anne Marie Lubanski, Liverpool Council director of adult services and health, said a “better balance” needed to be struck between home care, community care and hospital admissions.
Dr Jim Gardner, medical director at Liverpool's main NHS trust warned the the trust's board, there will have to be a “step down” of certain elements of care to ensure Liverpool’s sites have capacity during the industrial action. Further walk outs by members of Unison and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists had been planned for March 20 and 22 respectively but have been postponed as talks are ongoing.
The BMA intends its three day demonstration to be an “all out” strike, with no exemptions granted to services due to the nature of the work they do.
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