The NHS is being brought 'to its knees' even in the absence of any major Covid surge, according to a swathe of official data laying bare how A&Es, ambulance crews and hospitals are already struggling to cope before winter pressures have truly kicked in.
Doctors warned patients are dying in the back of ambulances and in corridors because emergency units are so busy.
Monthly NHS England data revealed a record-high 5.83million patients are now on the NHS waiting list for routine treatment, with the mammoth toll having snowballed during the pandemic.
At the same time, the average ambulance response time for heart attack and stroke patients is now nearly an hour, which paramedics admitted is putting patients' lives 'at risk'. 999 response times for category two calls are now three times above the health service's 18-minute safety target.
Doctors warned the grim performance figures were 'concerning' because winter pressures and staffing absences have yet to hit peak levels.
A poll of NHS bosses found nine in 10 felt the current situation — dealing with the pandemic-induced backlog and Covid — is 'unsustainable' and patient care is being compromised.
But in a glimmer of hope, hospital admissions are in retreat. Government dashboard data shows there were 868 admissions on November 7, down 14 per cent on the previous week. Daily admissions have fallen for six days in a row, suggesting the pressure will continue easing in the coming fortnight.
However, medics insist they are 'stretched beyond limits' because there are still huge numbers of Covid patients being treated in hospitals, with nearly 9,000 beds taken up by the infected.
No10 has said it will only revert to its winter Covid 'Plan B' strategy if the NHS faces 'unsustainable' pressure, which ministers argue has not occurred yet despite health leaders insisting otherwise.
Deborah Ward, senior analyst at the health think tank King's Fund said: 'Today's stats reveal the worst performance since current records began for ambulance calls, A&Es and waits for planned hospital care.
'In a normal year any one of these would ring alarm bells; taken together before winter has even begun, they suggest a health and care system running hot for such a sustained period whilst still dealing with Covid-19, is now on its knees.'
Richard Webber, of the College of Paramedics and a working paramedic, told the BBC that his colleagues 'have never before experienced anything like this at this time of the year'.
He added: 'Every day services are holding hundreds of 999 calls with no-one to send.
'The ambulance service is simply not providing the levels of service they should – patients are waiting too long and that is putting them at risk.'
Digger said
Nov 11 11:27 PM, 2021
Of course, the elephant in the room is...there are too many of us on this small island.
Maddog said
Nov 12 12:10 AM, 2021
NHS was always unsustainable in the long run. Like any massive government program (wasn't it or isn't is the largest employer on the planet?) it will become bloated, top heavy and inefficient.
This might not be the time to let people go who are trained professionals that won't take a mandatory vaccine.
The problem with the NHS is that the typical Brit has a religious like affinity for it. It needs to go, but you would have a better chance at getting the Pope to throw away his bible.
The Brits expect universal care. I know that's not going to change. But the rest of Europe has universal care without a government providing all or even most of it.
Digger said
Nov 12 8:20 AM, 2021
Maddog wrote:
NHS was always unsustainable in the long run. Like any massive government program (wasn't it or isn't is the largest employer on the planet?) it will become bloated, top heavy and inefficient.
This might not be the time to let people go who are trained professionals that won't take a mandatory vaccine.
The problem with the NHS is that the typical Brit has a religious like affinity for it. It needs to go, but you would have a better chance at getting the Pope to throw away his bible.
The Brits expect universal care. I know that's not going to change. But the rest of Europe has universal care without a government providing all or even most of it.
The NHS is mainly funded by taxation, the rest by National Insurance contributions. It's not Government funded nor is it free as some people seem to believe. It never has been. But as our population swells we haven't built more hospitals, nor made it easier to become a medical staff.
Also, the NHS has been put on an undeserved pedestal for too long. There's a culture of inefficiency that most of us bury our heads in the sand about. I have personal experience of how crap the NHS are, and I've got personal experience of how marvellous it can be.
During Covid the message was to protect the NHS, not the people it's meant to serve. So, when people were dying through lack of care while nurses danced for Tik Tok in empty hospital wards, it kind of made a mockery of all the NHS stands for and for some, exposed an ugly reality. Nobody dared to criticise. Sentimentality towards the NHS cost lives.
Once we accept that the NHS is not some kind of deity to be worshipped, when we’re honest about its failings, then maybe we’ll have a health service that befits one of the world’s wealthiest countries.
I think too, that some kind of system should be put in place where people have to pay for minor ailments privately, and leave the big stuff to the NHS. That way when some drunken party goer fetches up with a broken toe or grazed knee, they have to pay for it and not clog up the system for more serious operations or accidents. At the moment we all no choice but go sit in ER for five hours nursing that broken digit because there's nothing else in place.
We have a shit system for things like access to antibiotics. On the continent you can just go to the pharmacy for drugs to treat common minor infections. Here, we have to ring the GP, wait for a prescription and then go to the chemist to pick it up, and that can take days. So what happens is you get people dropping into A and E so they can go get these things without seeing a doctor. It's ridiculous.
Magica said
Nov 12 12:33 PM, 2021
It doesn't help that illegals and other immigrants use the NHS for everything and never paid a penny!
Syl said
Nov 12 1:04 PM, 2021
I can't disagree with either of you /\
Too many people using the service, many of which have not paid a penny into the NHS whilst others have paid in for 50 years.
Too much red tape.. if enough time and effort and money was spent on Dr/patient access as is spent on backroom admin it might improve.
The only time I hear from my surgery is when they are constantly checking on appointments, and follow up appointments, that have already been sorted, or more often been cancelled months ago....they are useless.
It seems to me people running local surgeries couldn't manage a piss up in a brewery, they sound aghast when asked if there are any actual GP.s available.
I haven't seen a GP for years, in spite of me needing a new knee and now a new hip.
Maddog said
Nov 12 3:14 PM, 2021
People get freaked out by the idea of competition in medical care. It's a double edged sword, but you have a bit more power when you get to choose your plumber, instead of having one chosen for you and told it's for the common good so that everyone has a plumber.
How good will a plumber be if he works for the government and has a union protecting his job?
You always get better service when you control payment to those serving you.
Syl said
Nov 12 5:10 PM, 2021
We do have the option of going private if we can afford it or we deem it necessary.
I had a knee replacement a few years ago on the NHS...couldn't fault it. If I go private for the next op, chances are the same surgeon could carry out the op...only difference is I would be seen quicker and I would have a private room for a couple of nights.
Anonymous said
Nov 12 5:47 PM, 2021
‘the average ambulance response time for heart attack and stroke patients is now nearly an hour’
… and the rest, it’s known stroke patients have waited up to 4 hours for an ambulance….. they need ‘clot busting’ drugs within 4 hours to reverse the effects of stroke, after that its too late to give them, hence a much longer recovery and strain on the NHS ahead!… the NHS has become a joke!
Anonymous said
Nov 12 5:57 PM, 2021
Syl wrote:
We do have the option of going private if we can afford it or we deem it necessary. I had a knee replacement a few years ago on the NHS...couldn't fault it. If I go private for the next op, chances are the same surgeon could carry out the op...only difference is I would be seen quicker and I would have a private room for a couple of nights.
Yes, seen privately by the very same NHS surgeon who couldn’t see you earlier unless of course you’re paying for your treatment… funny that innit? …. they focus too much on private care, so consequently NHS patients suffer…. Money sure talks!
John Doe said
Nov 12 6:58 PM, 2021
Magica wrote:
It doesn't help that illegals and other immigrants use the NHS for everything and never paid a penny!
The way things are going this island will bloody sink.
Nearly 1,200 crossed the channel yesterday.
The vast majority of illegal/economic migrants are fit, strong young men, how many are violent criminals or gang members? How many have committed war crimes? How many are members of ISIS, ISIS-K, Boko Harem, Al-Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist organisations?
Who knows.
The Government and security services certainly fucking don't.
'Welcome to Charity Island' as my Grandad used to say.
-- Edited by John Doe on Friday 12th of November 2021 07:01:11 PM
Maddog said
Nov 12 8:03 PM, 2021
Syl wrote:
We do have the option of going private if we can afford it or we deem it necessary. I had a knee replacement a few years ago on the NHS...couldn't fault it. If I go private for the next op, chances are the same surgeon could carry out the op...only difference is I would be seen quicker and I would have a private room for a couple of nights.
You're missing the major difference.
He would be working for you.
In theory, all government workers work for you. In practice, they don't.
Syl said
Nov 13 12:27 AM, 2021
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
We do have the option of going private if we can afford it or we deem it necessary. I had a knee replacement a few years ago on the NHS...couldn't fault it. If I go private for the next op, chances are the same surgeon could carry out the op...only difference is I would be seen quicker and I would have a private room for a couple of nights.
You're missing the major difference.
He would be working for you.
In theory, all government workers work for you. In practice, they don't.
Working for me or working for the NHS, the outcome is the same....a new knee.
Maddog said
Nov 13 1:13 AM, 2021
Syl wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
We do have the option of going private if we can afford it or we deem it necessary. I had a knee replacement a few years ago on the NHS...couldn't fault it. If I go private for the next op, chances are the same surgeon could carry out the op...only difference is I would be seen quicker and I would have a private room for a couple of nights.
You're missing the major difference.
He would be working for you.
In theory, all government workers work for you. In practice, they don't.
Working for me or working for the NHS, the outcome is the same....a new knee.
But one would be more on your terms. Like anyone that you hired.
Maddog said
Nov 13 1:16 AM, 2021
Let's put it this way. The NHS is on it's knees because its not accountable to its customers.
They are going through the motions and picking up a regular paycheck for doing so.
Vita said
Nov 13 1:47 AM, 2021
I was in hospital recently.
Well to cut a long story short an ulcer in my stomach burst and i lost 5 pints of blood, my mum found me out cold and phoned an ambulance and was told there was a 3-4 hour wait for an ambulance.
My mum told them 'My daughter won't be here in 3-4 hours' and it was suggested she phone a taxi, my mum knew there was no way she as a 77 year old woman, who is not in great health herself could get her 5ft 7in unconscious daughter down a flight of stairs and out to a taxi.
Fortunately it arrived in 15 minutes and i was taken to hospital and giving blood transfusions etc and was allowed home at the beginning of last week.
I can't thank the staff and the people who give up their time to give blood enough.
My only gripe is that in the past the nurse would come round with your medication, this time you had to get someone to bring in your own tablets and inhalers or wait 'A few days' till the order arrived.
Anyway i'm recovering at home and back with Toots who stopped eating while i was in hospital.
You should have seen the food at the hospital I was in a few years back. It was inedible. I had photos of it, but I think I deleted them. That looks like Michelin star compared to what I was offered.
-- Edited by Digger on Saturday 13th of November 2021 11:40:21 AM
John Doe said
Nov 13 11:55 AM, 2021
Vita wrote:
I was in hospital recently.
Well to cut a long story short an ulcer in my stomach burst and i lost 5 pints of blood, my mum found me out cold and phoned an ambulance and was told there was a 3-4 hour wait for an ambulance.
My mum told them 'My daughter won't be here in 3-4 hours' and it was suggested she phone a taxi, my mum knew there was no way she as a 77 year old woman, who is not in great health herself could get her 5ft 7in unconscious daughter down a flight of stairs and out to a taxi.
Fortunately it arrived in 15 minutes and i was taken to hospital and giving blood transfusions etc and was allowed home at the beginning of last week.
I can't thank the staff and the people who give up their time to give blood enough.
My only gripe is that in the past the nurse would come round with your medication, this time you had to get someone to bring in your own tablets and inhalers or wait 'A few days' till the order arrived.
Anyway i'm recovering at home and back with Toots who stopped eating while i was in hospital.
Bloody hell that's grim Vicky. I hope your recovery goes well. X
John Doe said
Nov 13 12:00 PM, 2021
Digger wrote:
Vita wrote:
Here's another gripe, small portions.
You should have seen the food at the hospital I was in a few years back. It was inedible. I had photos of it, but I think I deleted them. That looks like Michelin star compared to what I was offered.
-- Edited by Digger on Saturday 13th of November 2021 11:40:21 AM
At least you don't have to worry about Christmas dinner - I will slave over a hot kettle for you.
The NHS is being brought 'to its knees' even in the absence of any major Covid surge, according to a swathe of official data laying bare how A&Es, ambulance crews and hospitals are already struggling to cope before winter pressures have truly kicked in.
Doctors warned patients are dying in the back of ambulances and in corridors because emergency units are so busy.
Monthly NHS England data revealed a record-high 5.83million patients are now on the NHS waiting list for routine treatment, with the mammoth toll having snowballed during the pandemic.
At the same time, the average ambulance response time for heart attack and stroke patients is now nearly an hour, which paramedics admitted is putting patients' lives 'at risk'. 999 response times for category two calls are now three times above the health service's 18-minute safety target.
Doctors warned the grim performance figures were 'concerning' because winter pressures and staffing absences have yet to hit peak levels.
A poll of NHS bosses found nine in 10 felt the current situation — dealing with the pandemic-induced backlog and Covid — is 'unsustainable' and patient care is being compromised.
But in a glimmer of hope, hospital admissions are in retreat. Government dashboard data shows there were 868 admissions on November 7, down 14 per cent on the previous week. Daily admissions have fallen for six days in a row, suggesting the pressure will continue easing in the coming fortnight.
However, medics insist they are 'stretched beyond limits' because there are still huge numbers of Covid patients being treated in hospitals, with nearly 9,000 beds taken up by the infected.
No10 has said it will only revert to its winter Covid 'Plan B' strategy if the NHS faces 'unsustainable' pressure, which ministers argue has not occurred yet despite health leaders insisting otherwise.
Deborah Ward, senior analyst at the health think tank King's Fund said: 'Today's stats reveal the worst performance since current records began for ambulance calls, A&Es and waits for planned hospital care.
'In a normal year any one of these would ring alarm bells; taken together before winter has even begun, they suggest a health and care system running hot for such a sustained period whilst still dealing with Covid-19, is now on its knees.'
Richard Webber, of the College of Paramedics and a working paramedic, told the BBC that his colleagues 'have never before experienced anything like this at this time of the year'.
He added: 'Every day services are holding hundreds of 999 calls with no-one to send.
'The ambulance service is simply not providing the levels of service they should – patients are waiting too long and that is putting them at risk.'
This might not be the time to let people go who are trained professionals that won't take a mandatory vaccine.
The problem with the NHS is that the typical Brit has a religious like affinity for it. It needs to go, but you would have a better chance at getting the Pope to throw away his bible.
The Brits expect universal care. I know that's not going to change. But the rest of Europe has universal care without a government providing all or even most of it.
The NHS is mainly funded by taxation, the rest by National Insurance contributions. It's not Government funded nor is it free as some people seem to believe. It never has been. But as our population swells we haven't built more hospitals, nor made it easier to become a medical staff.
Also, the NHS has been put on an undeserved pedestal for too long. There's a culture of inefficiency that most of us bury our heads in the sand about. I have personal experience of how crap the NHS are, and I've got personal experience of how marvellous it can be.
During Covid the message was to protect the NHS, not the people it's meant to serve. So, when people were dying through lack of care while nurses danced for Tik Tok in empty hospital wards, it kind of made a mockery of all the NHS stands for and for some, exposed an ugly reality. Nobody dared to criticise. Sentimentality towards the NHS cost lives.
Once we accept that the NHS is not some kind of deity to be worshipped, when we’re honest about its failings, then maybe we’ll have a health service that befits one of the world’s wealthiest countries.
I think too, that some kind of system should be put in place where people have to pay for minor ailments privately, and leave the big stuff to the NHS. That way when some drunken party goer fetches up with a broken toe or grazed knee, they have to pay for it and not clog up the system for more serious operations or accidents. At the moment we all no choice but go sit in ER for five hours nursing that broken digit because there's nothing else in place.
We have a shit system for things like access to antibiotics. On the continent you can just go to the pharmacy for drugs to treat common minor infections. Here, we have to ring the GP, wait for a prescription and then go to the chemist to pick it up, and that can take days. So what happens is you get people dropping into A and E so they can go get these things without seeing a doctor. It's ridiculous.
Too many people using the service, many of which have not paid a penny into the NHS whilst others have paid in for 50 years.
Too much red tape.. if enough time and effort and money was spent on Dr/patient access as is spent on backroom admin it might improve.
The only time I hear from my surgery is when they are constantly checking on appointments, and follow up appointments, that have already been sorted, or more often been cancelled months ago....they are useless.
It seems to me people running local surgeries couldn't manage a piss up in a brewery, they sound aghast when asked if there are any actual GP.s available.
I haven't seen a GP for years, in spite of me needing a new knee and now a new hip.
How good will a plumber be if he works for the government and has a union protecting his job?
You always get better service when you control payment to those serving you.
I had a knee replacement a few years ago on the NHS...couldn't fault it. If I go private for the next op, chances are the same surgeon could carry out the op...only difference is I would be seen quicker and I would have a private room for a couple of nights.
‘the average ambulance response time for heart attack and stroke patients is now nearly an hour’
… and the rest, it’s known stroke patients have waited up to 4 hours for an ambulance….. they need ‘clot busting’ drugs within 4 hours to reverse the effects of stroke, after that its too late to give them, hence a much longer recovery and strain on the NHS ahead!… the NHS has become a joke!
Yes, seen privately by the very same NHS surgeon who couldn’t see you earlier unless of course you’re paying for your treatment… funny that innit?
…. they focus too much on private care, so consequently NHS patients suffer…. Money sure talks!
The way things are going this island will bloody sink.
Nearly 1,200 crossed the channel yesterday.
The vast majority of illegal/economic migrants are fit, strong young men, how many are violent criminals or gang members? How many have committed war crimes? How many are members of ISIS, ISIS-K, Boko Harem, Al-Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist organisations?
Who knows.
The Government and security services certainly fucking don't.
'Welcome to Charity Island' as my Grandad used to say.
https://news.sky.com/story/around-1-000-migrants-cross-into-the-uk-in-one-day-as-government-says-british-public-have-had-enough-12466562
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59257107
-- Edited by John Doe on Friday 12th of November 2021 07:01:11 PM
You're missing the major difference.
He would be working for you.
In theory, all government workers work for you. In practice, they don't.
Working for me or working for the NHS, the outcome is the same....a new knee.
But one would be more on your terms. Like anyone that you hired.
They are going through the motions and picking up a regular paycheck for doing so.
I was in hospital recently.
Well to cut a long story short an ulcer in my stomach burst and i lost 5 pints of blood, my mum found me out cold and phoned an ambulance and was told there was a 3-4 hour wait for an ambulance.
My mum told them 'My daughter won't be here in 3-4 hours' and it was suggested she phone a taxi, my mum knew there was no way she as a 77 year old woman, who is not in great health herself could get her 5ft 7in unconscious daughter down a flight of stairs and out to a taxi.
Fortunately it arrived in 15 minutes and i was taken to hospital and giving blood transfusions etc and was allowed home at the beginning of last week.
I can't thank the staff and the people who give up their time to give blood enough.
My only gripe is that in the past the nurse would come round with your medication, this time you had to get someone to bring in your own tablets and inhalers or wait 'A few days' till the order arrived.
Anyway i'm recovering at home and back with Toots who stopped eating while i was in hospital.
Here's another gripe, small portions.
You should have seen the food at the hospital I was in a few years back. It was inedible. I had photos of it, but I think I deleted them. That looks like Michelin star compared to what I was offered.
-- Edited by Digger on Saturday 13th of November 2021 11:40:21 AM
Bloody hell that's grim Vicky. I hope your recovery goes well. X
At least you don't have to worry about Christmas dinner - I will slave over a hot kettle for you.