05.11.13
Staffing shortage to compound winter pressure
This year the NHS could see its “worst winter yet”, the College of Emergency Medicine has warned. A shortage of doctors, with “toxic” overcrowding, is making the need to provide seven-day operations and improved out-of-hours care even more vital.
Dr Bernadette Garrihy, a member of the college’s board, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are getting ready for what may be our worst winter yet, and we have been warning about this for a number of months.
“Now that we are heading into winter, when we have got severe weather problems on the way, increased incidence of respiratory tract infections – things like winter vomiting bugs – we know that this puts our departments under huge pressure.”
Much of the pressure on A&E comes from inadequate use of primary and community services, she said, suggesting that patient and public education is the biggest issue.
“Certainly we are finding that our increased attendances – particularly out of hours, in the evening and night and at weekends – seem to be because patients aren't able to access any other sources of care.
“They are either unaware of them or they believe that they are not available to them, so they are coming to the emergency departments at a time when we have great issues around staffing, particularly senior medical staff, and significant issues as well about flow in our departments because we have toxic overcrowding in our departments due to bed-blocking in our hospitals.
“This, in the face of rising demand is a real issue for us. We are concerned about providing a safe and quality service this winter.”
Dr Garrihy added: “We need to address our staffing shortage urgently. We have got a real problem with senior doctors in A&E.
“We also need other parts of the health service to be working on a seven-day basis the way we are, providing out-of-hours cover too. The whole health service needs to be looking at seven-day working, and indeed the social services as well, because a lot of our patients have interlinked health and social demands.”
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