21.05.13
Farrar: ‘No use pointing the finger’ over A&E crisis
Ascribing blame for failings in emergency and urgent care is not helpful, the NHS Confederation’ chief executive Mike Farrar has said ahead of his appearance at the Health Select Committee today.
Coordinated action will be necessary to tackle these challenges and to avoid “the cliff edge”, he said.
“We have been ringing the alarm bells about urgent care services struggling to meet the demands of patients. The recent headlines do not lie – the pressures are growing and we are getting closer and closer to the cliff edge.”
Rising demand could see another half a million patients in A&E in the next three years, which will be “simply impossible for our hospital services to cope with”. The solution is complex and long waiting time highlight an inability of the service to manage the flow of patients across the NHS.
It also implies “an imbalance of investment” in primary, community and social care compared to hospital care.
Farrar added: “There is no use in pointing the finger at patients, or any one part of the system when in reality it is a perfect storm of different mounting pressures causing our problems – GPs, hospitals, NHS 111, the ambulance service and social care.
“These pressures have been compounded by three years of major structural reforms, a lack of honesty about the situation we face, and the service not being able to respond quickly enough to the financial pressures it faces.”
He called for NHS leaders to be able to spend money differently, the NHS and social care services working together better, using technology to move services online and increase access to information, and “courageous political leadership”.
This could offer the UK “a fighting chance of preventing disaster” that may “help the train coming off the tracks”.
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Image c. NHS Confederation