The Government is being warned that pressure on the NHS shows little sign of relenting, as ministers come under increasing pressure to respond to the crisis. Top medics described the current situation as “unbearable” and “intolerable”, as both the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary faced calls to address growing concerns about the state of emergency care in the NHS.
More than a dozen NHS trusts and ambulance services declared critical incidents over the festive period, with officials citing rising flu cases and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic among the factors hitting the health service. But amid concern that the pressure is likely to continue, the British Medical Association (BMA) said that the Government’s “political choices” were leading to patients “dying unnecessarily”.
Professor Phil Banfield, chairman of the BMA council, said: “The current situation in the NHS is intolerable and unsustainable, both for our patients and the hard-working staff desperately trying to keep up with incredibly high levels of demand. The BMA has repeatedly invited the Government to sit down and talk about the pressures on our health service, but their silence is deafening. It is disingenuous for the Prime Minister to talk about ‘backing the NHS’ in his New Year message, when his own Health Secretary is failing to discuss how this crisis can be fixed.”
