Many patients die in the emergency department due to a lack of adequate or timely care. This is the observation of several UK doctors’ organizations in light of the crisis affecting hospital care in the UK.
Britain’s free public health service, the NHS, is suffering from more than a decade of tough austerity measures and then the pandemic that has exhausted it completely. That crisis, which regularly makes headlines in the UK media, was reignited on Sunday when the organization representing emergency services, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, estimated that between 300 and 500 patients died each week due to lack of care and the endless waits .
Twelve hour wait
Hospital officials have downplayed the credibility of those figures, but the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine defended that estimate on the BBC on Monday, dismissing the hypothesis of temporary difficulties: ‘If you’re in the field you know it’s a long-term problem, it is not just short-term,” stressed Ian Higginson.
Last week, one in five patients treated by an ambulance in England took more than an hour to get to the emergency room. And tens of thousands of patients had to wait more than 12 hours before being treated in the emergency room.
No increase
The government questions the current situation on the consequences of Covid-19 and winter epidemics like the flu and pretends to want to do more for the hospital, but has recently introduced a very strict budgetary austerity policy.
He therefore rejects the increases requested, while inflation has exceeded 10% for months, by the nurses who followed their first strike in December.
Sunak promises “decisive” action
The British Medical Association, a federation of nurses, echoed the alarming remarks on Monday. “It is not true that the country does not have the resources to fix this mess,” said President Phil Banfield in a press release. “It’s a political decision and patients are dying unnecessarily because of that decision,” he added.
He called the current situation “unsustainable” and called for “immediate” action by the government. In his wishes, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak named the NHS as one of his priorities and assured his government was taking “decisive” action to reduce the delays piling up in healthcare.