Wes Streeting has held urgent talks with NHS leaders in England about how the service will cope with an impending winter crisis, amid signs that it is already under intense pressure.
At the meeting on Monday, the health secretary told the chief executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, and the bosses of large hospital trusts to prioritise patient safety over trying to meet waiting time targets.
He convened the meeting days after NHS England said hospitals faced being overwhelmed by a potential “quad-demic” of flu, Covid, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the diarrhoea and vomiting bug (norovirus).
There is mounting alarm that more than 2,000 of the service’s 100,000 beds are already filled with people with Covid (1,390) or norovirus (756), another 142 occupied by children with RSV and that ambulance services are struggling to cope with the number of 999 calls they are receiving.
Streeting said: “We inherited a broken NHS that saw annual winter crisis as the norm. This year, we’re seeing record pressures on services as we move into winter. This winter I want to see patient safety prioritised as we brace ourselves for the coming months.”
He has asked local NHS leaders to make it a priority to get patients out of ambulances and into their hospitals as soon as possible, so crews can get back on the road to attend other incidents, and also to ensure that patients do not wait too long for care in A&E units.
Pritchard said the service would face even greater pressures in the coming weeks as a cold spell bit, even though it has ramped up hospital-at-home-style “virtual wards” and delivered more than 27m vaccinations since September.
“We know services are set to come under even more strain,” she said.
She echoed the health secretary, maintaining that “patient safety must be paramount” as hospitals and ambulance service come under strain. The NHS and local councils and providers of social care services needed to work together to keep the number of hospital beds occupied by patients who were medically fit to be discharged as low as possible, she added.
But hospital doctors voiced unease that Streeting had felt it necessary to tell NHS bosses to do their best to maintain patient safety, which will inevitably be compromised. The NHS’s lack of staff and resources was the key reason it could not meet targets for treatment waiting times, the Society for Acute Medicine said.
Dr Tim Cooksley, a former president of the society, said: “It is concerning that the secretary of state feels it reasonable to reiterate the need to focus on the key priorities that frontline clinical and operational staff aim to optimise every day under extreme pressure.
“The stark reality is not that hospitals and staff on the frontline are manipulating targets but that they are simply unable to deliver safe and effective care even when trying their utmost to do so, given the impossible situations they are in.
“The extra cases of winter viruses, such as Covid, flu, norovirus and RSV, mean many hospitals will fall into critical incidents and patient safety will be compromised – but not as a result of hard-working staff not putting patient safety first but because the hospitals simply cannot cope.”
Prof Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, urged more people to have a winter flu jab, to help the NHS and cut flu-related deaths.
“Flu is sharply increasing and putting higher numbers in hospital. Unless more of those at risk and eligible for a vaccine come forward, this trend is likely to continue, resulting in more hospitalisations over Christmas and tragically resulting in more deaths than we saw last year over Christmas.
“We shouldn’t forget flu can still be very serious for some and the vaccine is our best defence.”
