07.01.15
NHS urgent care ‘front door’ needs fundamental redesign – Stevens
NHS England boss Simon Stevens wants a fundamental redesign of the health service’s urgent care front door.
But, he insists that as far as this winter is concerned, everything that could “reasonably” have been done to plan and expand services over has been done.
His comments came as NHS England published a breakdown of the government’s extra £700m funding for winter services: extra beds, more frontline clinicians, and to fund support for community and council services over the winter period.
The ‘resilience’ funding allocations to England’s 212 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) revealed that more than a quarter of them invested some of the money into primary care GP schemes.
For example, in Northern Derbyshire, more than £600,000 has been spent on making improvements to NHS111 and GP out-of-hours services.
In Sunderland, the CCG invested in seven day pharmacy services, and in Northumberland more than £400,000 has been spent on increasing nurses on the frontline.
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has stated that while the £700m injection was much needed, it is “not a permanent solution”.
“District nurse numbers have been slashed, and a lack of community services means people are trapped in hospitals,” he said. “Trusts can’t hire enough nurses because of cuts to training places. All of this adds to the pressure on A&E services.”
Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said: “We have reached a tipping point – 20,000 extra patients a week all have to be accommodated within the same bed capacity as in 2013.
“The thing that concerns me is this daily, weekly intolerable pressure is starting to have an effect on staff. They are more likely to become sick, they burn out and choose other professions. This is not a sustainable situation.”
This week, hospitals across the country have been declaring major or significant incidents as they struggle to cope with unprecedented demand on their A&E services.
Most of these new services, made available from the £700m funding, are now up and running, with further beds and staff due to be in place in January and February.
But despite ‘robust’ and ‘detailed’ joint planning between hospitals, GPs, CCGs, community services and local councils across the country, problems have arisen.
Simon Stevens, CEO of NHS England, said: “This winter our local health services are responding to far-and-away the highest ever number of ambulance calls, A&E attendances and emergency admissions in the NHS’ history.
“That’s why the NHS, the Department of Health and local clinicians have done everything that could reasonably be expected to plan carefully and expand services over the winter. But for the future it’s clear we also need a fundamental redesign of the NHS urgent care ‘front door’ – A&E, GPs, 999, 111, Out of Hours, community and social care services – as part of the broader programme of care transformation set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View.”
He did add that a huge debt of gratitude, however, is owed to the hard-working frontline NHS nurses, paramedics, doctors and other staff that have been going the extra mile during the winter period.
To view a breakdown of some of the schemes, click here.
(Image: c. Joe Giddens/PA)
Tell us what you think – have your say below or email [email protected]