Patients ‘belittled and bewildered’ as access to NHS care worsens, doctors warn

By Ella Pickover26th June 2017News EnglandCare Standards, Government / Politics, GPs, Hospitals, News England, NHS, Primary Care / GP's

Patients are being “belittled and bewildered” as access to NHS care is worsening, leading doctors have warned.

The British Medical Association (BMA) said the Government wants a world-class NHS but was only offering it a “third-class” financial settlement.

It said that the health service is at “breaking point” and concerns are being “wilfully ignored” by ministers.

The NHS is “running on fumes”, the BMA said, as it called on ministers to increase health spending to rise to match that of other leading EU economies.

A new BMA poll found that more people were dissatisfied with the NHS than satisfied with services.

The survey found that 82% are worried about the future of the NHS, and three in five said they expect the NHS to get worse in the coming years.

Three quarters of those surveyed said they thought the number of services on offer will be reduced and 83% said they believed that waiting times would increase.

And the poll of more than 1,000 English adults found that 43% were dissatisfied with services compared with a third being satisfied.

The concerns were echoed in a poll of 422 doctors, where 71% said it has become more difficult for patients trying to access NHS care over the past 12 months.

The poll was issued to mark the start of the union’s annual representative meeting in Bournemouth, where leading medics will debate many issues facing the workforce and the NHS as a whole.

One of the motions, tabled by the East Midlands Council arm of the union, is a call for GPs to be able to issue so-called “black alerts” to show they have reached maximum safe capacity.

The motion, tabled by the East Midlands Council arm of the union, says: “This meeting notes the regular declarations of ‘black alert’ by hospitals and demands that a similar reporting system be created for general practice to indicate that maximum safe capacity has been reached.”

Addressing the conference, BMA chairman of council Dr Mark Porter will say: “We have a government trying to keep the health service running on nothing but fumes. A health service at breaking point. Run by ministers who wilfully ignore the pleas of the profession and the impact on patients.

“After years of underinvestment, with a growing, ageing population, and despite the extraordinary dedication of its staff, it is failing too many people, too often.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. It is the result of an explicit political choice. We don’t have to spend less of our GDP than the other leading European economies on health.

“Our government has chosen to do this. If we spent the average – the average, not the most – then patients would see £15bn extra investment in the English NHS within five years. We’re not asking for the world. We’re asking for the average. For a fair chance to create the health service our patients need and deserve.

“Passing the buck is not a solution. Blaming staff is not a solution. Giving the NHS the resources that patients have told us they need – that’s a solution.”

He will add: “How many people does the Government think should have to suffer like this? Waiting more than four hours for admission to a bed?

“Would 129,000 in a single year be too many? That’s what it was five years ago. Last year it was more than half a million, a four-fold increase. How many patients belittled and bewildered in this way is acceptable to ministers?”

Dr Porter will tell delegates: “The Government wants a world-class NHS with a third-class settlement. So do the other main political parties. They share the failure of vision. Under all the plans set out in the election, the share of GDP spent on health would have actually fallen.”

He accused the Government of “blaming staff” when things go wrong while “picking the pockets of its staff”.

“In January, in the midst of what the British Red Cross called a ‘humanitarian crisis’, with both GPs and hospitals working flat out, the prime minister chose to set one against the other,” he will say.

“Seriously? The Prime Minister sees a health service at breaking point and blames GPs? When almost a third of practices can’t fill GP vacancies, when they’re dealing with tens of millions more appointments than they did a decade ago, with a smaller share of NHS funding.

“The Prime Minister blames doctors, when her own government is so conspicuously failing to keep its side of the bargain and recruit the much-trumpeted 5,000 new GPs by 2020. Three years ago, it was a pledge. Then it became an ambition. Now it seems more like a mirage. And a language of evasion and failure.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “This does a disservice to the achievements of NHS staff – the highest cancer survival rates ever, mental health care expanding at the fastest rate in Western Europe, and 17 million people getting evening and weekend GP appointments, which is why genuinely independent research shows public satisfaction is now the highest for all but three of the last 20 years.”

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: “The vast majority of the public are deeply concerned and yet Theresa May remains in utter denial of her government’s flagrant disregard for our health service.”