Thousands of people could die this winter, as NHS departments struggle to cope during the cold months. The “inadequate” plans over how the NHS will tackle the hospital admissions may result in more than 500 excess deaths every week, a top doctor has warned.
The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), Dr Adrian Boyle said that current measures put in place to try and deal with more hospital admissions are not thorough enough.
Dr Boyle says the package of measures presented by NHS England and the Government allows for less than half of the beds that will be needed and they are “at least” 11,000 staffed beds short given current numbers.
The leading doctor also said he feared the NHS offer of financial rewards for hitting waiting times targets may result in hospitals trying to ‘game’ the system, with the most poorly patients waiting the longest.
Speaking to The Independent newspaper he said: “If you just look at the figures, all the indicators of our target performance, 12-hour waits in hospital, are all going the wrong way. If we compare them to what was going on at the same time a year ago, it makes me anxious that we are heading towards a worse winter than we just had.
“The Government is blithely sailing towards an iceberg.”
He added that if it allows this winter to be as bad as the last, ‘it will break the very people who keep this broken system creaking along’.
In January, the RCEM claimed that there were 300 and 500 excess deaths each week in the UK due to A&E delays but Dr Boyle fears the 2023 figure could end up being much higher.
He said: “Yes, actually, I think we are (at risk of seeing even higher excess deaths this coming winter)”, adding he had “little confidence” that the winter plans will “prevent queues of ambulances outside of hospitals, or the shameful sight of patients waiting for hours on trolleys in the corridors in A&Es (that are) full to bursting”.
He said: “People will start trying to look after and prioritise people who they think they can send home (within four hours) over patients who need admitting. They’ll just accept the patients who need admitting are going to spend longer than four hours … It distorts clinical priorities away from those who aren’t the sickest.
“This would leave the most vulnerable, typically the elderly and those in a poor mental state, waiting for hours potentially on trolleys in corridors.”
An NHS spokesman said: “We have already seen significant improvements in ambulance and A&E services over recent months through initiatives in our urgent and emergency care recovery plan, which includes measures to increase bed capacity.
“The NHS will continue to build on this with our winter plan which, after clinical engagement, was published on Thursday.”
