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The real NHS crisis is political not humanitarian. Politicians of all parties have failed to provide sufficient funding for health and social care, with predictable and sometimes distressing consequences.
Hospitals are struggling to meet rising demands from a growing and ageing population, and most are failing to hit the four hour waiting time target in emergency departments. Patients are being cared for on trolleys in corridors, and this is compromising patient safety-sadly illustrated by reports of the death of patients in Worcester. 1
The challenges facing hospitals result from failure to invest sufficiently in services in the community to provide care in people's homes and help them remain independent. General practices, district nursing, and social care have all been affected, resulting in patients attending hospital because of the lack of appropriate alternatives. Many of these patients could be cared for out of hospital if community services were properly funded and staffed.
Social care is in the eye of the storm, with the number of people receiving publicly funded care falling by more than 400000 since 2009-10. 2 Neglect of social care means that a growing number of people receiving hospital care cannot be discharged when their treatment has finished because of lack of community support.
Many emergency departments are seriously overcrowded, with patients waiting for a bed to become available. 3 The spectre of ambulances waiting to discharge patients to emergency departments is the inevitable and unwelcome consequence.
None of this should be a surprise. Winter pressures are a familiar feature of the NHS, and the result of cuts...