The government’s emergency NHS recovery plan won’t work without more medics to staff the promised extra ambulances and hospital beds, trust leaders have warned.
Presenting the two-year plan for England during a visit to the University of North Tees (UHNT) hospital in Stockton-on-Tees on Monday, Rishi Sunak said he saw “the biggest and fastest improvement in emergency waiting times that I could ever make.” National Health Service”. story'” to deliver.
Record ambulance transfer delays, response times and waiting times in the emergency room have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, but the prime minister said that with the “hard work” and “ingenuity” of NHS staff, we will “fix this problem.” He added: “We are going to improve the situation of patients and bring great benefits to people across the country.”
Ahead of the biggest union day the NHS will see next Monday, Mr Sunak was challenged during a Q&A session with hospital workers by a local nurse who asked, “When are you going to pay nurses properly?”
The prime minister said he’d like to “wave the magic wand” and pay NHS workers more than the average 4.5% they’ve been getting this year, but that’s not affordable and his priority is to halve inflation.
Mr Sunak said he was “confident” that ministers could implement proposals for 800 new ambulances, thousands of additional permanent hospital beds and an expansion of “virtual wards” that would allow more people, especially the elderly, to be treated in their own homes. become.
The “ambitious and credible” targets include seeing 76 percent of emergency department patients within four hours – the target was 95 percent until last month but has not been met since July 2015 – and Category 2 ambulance response time, 999 calls, in including those with heart attacks and strokes, on average up to 30 minutes, as in March. The average Category 2 response time in December was 93 minutes.
Professor Phil Banfield, Chairman of the Board of the BMA, said: “The National Health Service cannot afford to wait two years for the proportion of assistance that the government has offered today in this regard. If the NHS has a chance of surviving this long, we need to immediately seek funding and take action to maintain and strengthen our workforce.
The NHS in England has 133,000 vacancies, including 46,000 caregivers, and a shortage of 10,500 doctors, contributing to record waiting times.
Mr Sunak promised that the NHS’s long-term workforce plan, which would outline how many staff would be needed over the next 15 years, would be published “soon” but did not give a date. He told the UHNT staff, “This is what you and your colleagues have been asking for ages. We will finally do it.”
The Prime Minister was joined at the hospital by Health Minister Steve Barclay and NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard as he outlined the plan. The trio previously visited the UHNT Integrated Clearing House, a center that manages patients entering and leaving the hospital and contacts community groups to help them with discharge and free beds.
Mr Sunak praised the NHS staff who have developed a new system to manage the flow of patients through their hospital. “This is the model we need to make sure we can do more across the country,” he told staff.
Mr Sunak described the use of virtual wards as a way of dealing with pressure from the NHS as “transformative” as patients would be brought home faster. The number of virtual departments will increase from the current 7,000 to “at least 10,000 within the next year,” he said.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said there were “a number of risks” associated with virtual rooms, including removing senior doctors and nurses from routine duties. Although it works well in some cases, he says, such as when dealing with long-term conditions.
The plan also includes a promise to create 5,000 “more sustainable” hospital beds, but it turns out that only 1,000 of those will be beds with additional staff. Approximately 4,000 existing temporary beds become permanent, HSJ reported.
Saffron Corderi, Acting Director of NHS Providers, said: “I think all eyes are now on the budget to see if the chancellor and government announce a fully funded and budgeted long-term workforce plan that we look forward to. for a long time – because without personnel we cannot reliably staff it, despite all the capacity utilization.
Source: I News
I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.