AN estimated 500 people are dying each week because of delays in emergency care and it's “not a short-term thing”, a senior health official has said.
Ian Higginson, vice-president of the UK's Royal College of Emergency Medicine, hit out at any attempt to “discredit” previous warnings from his organisation over serious problems in hospitals by blaming the pandemic.
Speaking to the BBC's Today programme on Monday, he said: “What we’ve been hearing over the last few days is that the current problems are all due to Covid or they’re all due to flu, or that this is complex, you mustn’t jump to conclusions – all that sort of stuff.
“If you’re at the front line, you know that this is a longstanding problem. This isn’t a short-term thing. The sort of things we’re seeing happen every winter, and it still seems to come as a surprise to the NHS.”
The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, told Times Radio on Monday that somewhere between 300 and 500 people are dying each week as a result of delays and problems with urgent and emergency care.
“We need to actually get a grip of this,” he said.
It comes after more than a dozen NHS trusts and ambulance services in England declared critical incidents over the festive period.
Last week, one in five ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be handed over to A&E teams.
And in Scotland A&E waiting times performance hit another record low last week, with just 55% of patients seen and subsequently admitted, discharged or transferred within the four-hour target in the week to December 18.
Higginson added that the Royal College of Emergency Medicine figures on deaths caused by delays were more than a “guesstimate”.
“We have really good evidence that has been accumulated over decades that long waits in emergency departments are associated with poor outcomes for patients,” he said.
“These are real figures and I worry that we’re going to hear attempts to spin and manipulate this data and discredit it. I think if we hear that, we’ve got to say no – that is spin.
“This is a real problem. It’s happening now in our emergency departments.”
Higginson told BBC News that staff in emergency departments are having to treat patients in corridors, adding: “It’s pretty dreadful out there for doctors, nurses, other practitioners in emergency departments, but importantly it’s dreadful for our patients, I’m afraid.
“What we’re seeing is an amplification of the sorts of stuff we’ve been hearing about for a while now, where patients are waiting a long time for ambulances. Once they get an ambulance, they might be waiting outside our emergency departments for a long time to actually get in our doors.
“And once they finally make it through our doors there are long waits inside our departments to be seen. And we’re having to treat patients in all sorts of unsatisfactory places, such as corridors, or areas that simply aren’t meant to to house patients.
“All this is at a level that most of us who’ve worked in emergency medicine have never seen before. It’s dreadful.”
Education minister Robert Halfon told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that the pressure on A&E departments is a “top priority” for the Prime Minister.
The Conservative MP acknowledged the pressures facing the health system but said: “I’m absolutely clear that the Prime Minister treats this as a top priority."
But the LibDems called on the Government to recall Parliament.
Health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “This is a life or death situation for huge numbers of patients. The NHS is collapsing in front of our eyes whilst the Prime Minister and Health Secretary are nowhere to be seen.
“This is a national crisis and the country will never forgive the Government if they refuse to recall Parliament whilst hundreds of people die in parked ambulances or hospital corridors.
“Nobody should lose a loved one because the Government was asleep on the job."
