Crisis, what crisis?

When is a humanitarian crisis not a humanitarian crisis? Apparently when the health secretary and prime minister choose to reject the analysis of crisis care professionals.

On Friday January 6, the British Red Cross’s description of a humanitarian crisis in emergency NHS care was soundly rejected by health secretary Jeremy Hunt, arguing that most hospitals are coping better this winter than they did last year.

British Red Cross’ chief executive Mike Adamson, said his teams were helping out in 20 A&E departments.

“We see people discharged from hospital to chaotic situations at home, falling and not being found for hours, not being washed because there is no carer to help them,” he wrote in an article for the Times.

“These are people in crisis and in recent weeks we have started talking about this as a humanitarian crisis. We don’t say this lightly and we have a duty to say it,” Adamson said.

Hunt refuted this analysis. When asked about reports of emergency patients being kept on trolleys for hours because there were no available beds, he said, “Well, these problems are totally unacceptable. This is the most difficult time for the NHS in the year. It always is very difficult after the Christmas period when GP surgeries are not open over the actual days of Christmas and then they reopen and a lot of people get sent to hospital.”

But he continued that he believed the situation had “eased significantly” over the weekend, saying the numbers of patients kept too long on trolleys “has reduced to a handful now – so it’s much, much lower than it was a week earlier.

“This is always the busiest week but we need to work with the public to understand that accident and emergency departments are there for what it says on the tin, for accidents and emergencies,” he added.

Prime minister Theresa May also denied there was any crisis within the health service – insisting these difficulties were similar to those experienced every year.

“We recognise the pressures that the NHS has been under over the winter – this is not unusual,” she said. “There are always extra pressures for the NHS over the winter period.”

Unite doctors ‘grateful’ to Red Cross

Unite NHS members have a very different view however. Dr David Wrigley, leader of Doctors in Unite told UNITElive, “Doctors in Unite are very grateful to the British Red Cross for helping the NHS in its hour of need.

“All over the country NHS staff are struggling to cope in a health service and social care system that has been systemically cut and neglected by this government. We are seriously concerned about patient care for the elderly and most vulnerable in society.  “We call on Theresa May to fund the English NHS adequately to at least the EU average. We are not a poor country and can afford to care properly for our patients at the time of their greatest need.”
 

Unite national officer Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe echoed Wrigley’s call for adequate funding. He said, “It gives me no pleasure to say that warnings of NHS crisis have been vindicated by this story.

“Yes, each year there are concerns winter pressures, but with the NHS being underfunded since 2010 and the funding gap continuing till at least 2020. The government has a duty to candidly assess its’ handling of our NHS.”

“The PM is in danger of being `economic with the actualitie’ on the issues of NHS funding,” said Unite general secretary Len McCluskey.

“Health economists have consistently said that by forcing the NHS to make £20bn in savings by 2020, the government is driving this service into crisis.

“The government knows all too well that the funding for the service falls far short of what is needed to meet the challenges presented by the monstrous debts carried by hospital trusts, from an ageing population and from the pitiful absence of a reliable, decent social care service which is urgently needed to take the pressure off the frontline NHS.

 

‘Starved of vital funds’

“Ever since the Conservatives took power, either in coalition or in full control as they are now, Unite members have had to fight to save our NHS.  Our members working in frontline care have seen funding fall while growing, pointless bureaucracy consumes money that ought to be spent on patient care.  They are frustrated beyond measure that they are both enduring a decade of falling pay while the service too is starved of vital funds.”

McCluskey continued, “Patients now only have the dedication and professionalism of health professionals to place their trust in for ministers have sorely let them down.

“The final humiliation has been the need to bring in the British Red Cross to provide urgent humanitarian assistance. The UK is the sixth wealthiest nation on the planet. This is a rich nation and any government that sees the greatest force for social good this country has ever created forced to turn to charity in order to administer basic patient case should be thoroughly ashamed of itself.

“Health minister Hunt should be packing his bags.  It is high time he made way for someone able to support our NHS before his bungling takes our health service to a state beyond repair,” he added.