Parts of the NHS are providing “unacceptable” care to patients, Jeremy Hunt has admitted.
In an interview with the BBC the Health Secretary said there was “no excuse” for failings documented at some hospitals amid the winter crisis hitting the system.
Mr Hunt claimed that the Government was “doing what we can with extra financial support for the NHS this year” and suggested long-term reforms he said could help.
The Independent however revealed last month that the Government is in fact cutting real NHS spending per person over the coming years. Similarly, MPs on the Health Committee have warned that the Government is exaggerating how much help it is giving the health service.
A number of key indicators on the health of the NHS have deteriorated under Mr Hunt’s watch. The numbers waiting more than they should for routine operations in hospitals has risen more than 163 per cent in four years, while nine out of 10 hospitals have unsafe numbers of patients in their wards this year.
Record number of patients are waiting more than four hours for A&E care while the Government has moved to quietly privatise its in-house staffing agency despite an increasing reliance on expensive agency staff.
Mr Hunt was accused of “hiding” in January after the British Red Cross declared a “humanitarian crisis” in the health service, calling for more funding.
Emerging to comment in public on Friday morning, he told the BBC: “It is incredibly frustrating for me. I’m doing this job because I want NHS care to be the safest and best in the world and that kind of care is completely unacceptable, no one would want it for their own family.
“I think what you have to recognise is there are positive things as well as negative things and there is huge commitment in the NHS to sort out those negative things and the particular pressure point we have is A&E.”
He appeared to urge some members of the public to stay away from A&E departments, warning:
“We also need the public’s help because we also know the number of people seen in A&Es could actually have their needs dealt with in another part of the NHS.
"We need to make sure that as far as we can we free up people in A&E departments to free up with the most vulnerable patients, particularly.”
