{"id":2321,"date":"2014-11-26T14:18:22","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T14:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2014-11-27T11:13:58","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T11:13:58","slug":"stretched-breaking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2321","title":{"rendered":"Stretched to breaking point?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As winter approaches, and serious respiratory infections and viruses are expected to soar, A & E services are anticipated to be stretched to a breaking point in the coming months.<\/p>\n

 
\nIndeed, 22,000 extra patients turned up to A & E this week as compared to the same week last year.<\/p>\n

 
\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s particularly important, as both a long-standing NHS campaign and health secretary Jeremy Hunt himself have repeatedly advised, that patients only seek hospital services in the most urgent cases. All others should see their GP.<\/p>\n

 
\nIt would seem, however, that Hunt feels perfectly justified in giving guidance to the public on the one hand, and altogether ignoring this advice himself.<\/p>\n

 
\nDuring health questions at the House of Commons on Tuesday (November 25), Hunt admitted, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI took my own children to an A&E department at the weekend precisely because I did not want to wait until later on to take them to see a GP.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nParents everywhere will know what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like to have a sick child \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and could well understand Hunt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions. But this is no ordinary parent.<\/p>\n

 
\nLabour shadow health secretary Andy Burnham criticised Hunt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statement, saying that a concerned parent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worries are perfectly understandable but that \u00e2\u20ac\u015b[Hunt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s admission] appears to be at odds with long standing advice to the public and in advance of a potentially difficult winter in the NHS, could add pressure to already overstretched A & E services.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpotentially difficult winter\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 for the health service is already kicking off to a chilling early start \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the second week of November saw more emergency admissions in English hospitals than in any other week in NHS history, despite the mild weather.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd a growing number of hospitals have already declared \u00e2\u20ac\u015bblack alerts\u00e2\u20ac\u0165\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe highest level \u00e2\u20ac\u201c indicating that bed capacity has been reached and additional patients would have to be sent to different hospitals.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut the extent of the NHS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 looming winter of discontent has not yet been fully revealed, precisely because the coalition government doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want the public to know \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the publication of the health service\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weekly \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwinter pressures situation reports\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 have been inexplicably delayed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 
\nHunt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s admitting to taking his children to A & E came in response to a question about improving access to GP surgeries.
\nBut if previous Tory health policy is anything to go by, then GP access will continue to be stretched \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it was the Tories who scrapped Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s GP targets that guaranteed patients would see a GP within 48 hours.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhile much has been made about the coalition\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pledge to afford every patient GP access seven days a week, 12 hours a day by 2020, the exact same pledge was made before the previous election, with hardly any progress made since.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn fact, seeing a GP now has become more difficult than ever.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite head of health Rachael Maskell argued that the Hunt incident was perfectly indicative of the Tory-induced NHS crisis.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe health secretary has illustrated himself the crisis he has driven the NHS into,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bStarving primary care of the resources it needs, coupled with the shambolic reorganisation of the NHS, will bring serious pressure to A & Es up and down the country this winter.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe pressures GPs face working for the NHS \u00e2\u20ac\u201c where pay is low and stress is high \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have prompted many of them to flee abroad, where working conditions are much better. A report<\/a> released earlier this week found that the number of GPs moving abroad to work has doubled under the coalition.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd as UNITElive reported in October<\/a>, the overall GP workforce is shrinking rapidly, as many GPs are poised to retire from the service, while not enough medical graduates have opted to enter general practitioner training.<\/p>\n

 
\nDr Ron Singer, who chairs the doctors’ section of Unite confirmed the enormous strains GPs are under, arguing unreasonable political promises will only make the situation worse.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe plain fact is that the UK has too few GPs and other doctors,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have one of the lowest number of doctors and nurses per head of population in Europe. Forcing GPs to work 12-14 hours a day is bad for them, bad for patients and bad for the efficiency of the NHS.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nMaskell agreed. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe see our GPs working all hours to get on top of their long lists of patients under ever growing pressures,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis government must be held to account at the ballot box next May for the chaos they have brought to our NHS,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Maskell added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As winter approaches, and serious respiratory infections and viruses are expected to soar, A & E services are anticipated to be stretched to a breaking point in the coming months.   Indeed, 22,000 extra patients turned up to A & E this week as compared to the same week last year.   That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[29,80],"wps_subtitle":"Hunt uses A&E instead of following his own instructions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c exposing seriously stretched NHS ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2323,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions\/2323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}