Patient safety

Porter: NHS now in ‘year-round crisis’ and unlikely to recover

Doctors have today warned that the NHS in England is “unlikely” to recover from of one of the worst winters on record which has now seen health care enter “a state of year-round crisis”.

Analysis of NHS performance by the BMA has found that over the last winter period, key performance markers including bed occupancy, delayed transfers of care and waits at A&E all significantly increased.

This is despite the organisation saying that external factors had not been particularly challenging, as the weather was mild in December and central England experienced average temperatures of just 0.2°C below the historic average. There were also no widespread outbreaks of influenza or norovirus.

The analysis found that over the first three months of 2017, bed occupancy on general and acute wards was the highest ever recorded at 91.4%.

Mental health bed occupancy at the end of the year was also the highest ever recorded, at 89.7%., and there were 328 fewer available mental health beds between January and March than between October and December. And between November and March, almost a fifth of patients waited over four hours to be seen at major A&Es.

This has led the BMA to call on the government to invest in the workforce, agree a long-term solution to funding, capacity and staffing challenges across health and social care and ensure STPs in England were realistic, evidence-based and appropriately funded.

“These figures show that hospitals have just endured one of the worst winters on record, with patients facing unacceptably long waits for treatment,” said Dr Mark Porter, council chair of the BMA.

“These delays are having a profound impact on patients’ experience of the NHS and mean frontline staff are left working under extremely difficult conditions.”

Dr Porter also warned that the pressure the NHS was facing could be put down entirely to bad political decisions, including years of chronic underfunding that failed to keep up with patient demand.

“Politicians are consistently missing their own targets across the health system and the NHS is clearly at breaking point,” he added. “Pressures previously only seen during the winter months are now becoming the norm year-round, as current trends suggest that performance will continue to deteriorate rather than improve.”

Dr Porter concluded by saying that the health and social care systems could no longer cope without urgent action.

“In the run-up to the general election, we call on politicians of all parties not to duck this crisis any longer,” he said. “This means, as a minimum, immediately bringing investment in line with other leading European countries and outlining credible, long-term plans that will safeguard the future of the fully funded and supported NHS that staff want and patients deserve.”

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