Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who works at the RUH and other NHS providers across Bath. Their tireless contribution to the community is fantastic, appreciated and supports us all.
A number of residents have written to me regarding the NHS and the preparations and support available to hospitals this winter. I have received some information from the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt about the measures being put in place to tackle this period of unprecedented demand on services.
Working alongside the NHS for many years before entering Parliament, I have seen this issue spiral under Governments of all colours. I agree we must take action to resolve this for the long term sake of our NHS.
Right now, as in previous winters, the NHS is pulling out all the stops under the greatest pressure. In just six years the number of people aged over 80 has risen by 340,000, and life expectancy has risen by 12 months. Demand is unprecedented. The Tuesday after Christmas was the busiest day in the history of the NHS, and some hospitals are reporting that A&E attendances are up to 30% higher compared with last year.
This government’s commitment to patients goes far further than the additional £10 billion pounds we are providing to the NHS this parliament. We are also taking the tough decisions to reform the NHS for the long term, while gripping the challenges we see in the near term. Jeremy Hunt has provided an update on the measures the Government has taken to help the NHS through this winter. These preparations were more extensive than ever before and included:
- £400 million allocated to local health systems for winter preparedness;
- 1,600 more doctors and 3,000 more nurses on our wards than just a year ago (bringing the increase since 2010 to 11,400 doctors and 11,200 more hospital nurses);
- detailed winter plans from every trust assured by the NHS leadership;
- the largest ever winter flu vaccination programme with more than 13 million people already vaccinated;
- and 12,000 additional GP sessions offered over the critical festive period.
As a consequence of this preparation and, most importantly, the hard work of frontline staff, the system overall is coping and even performing slightly better than last year. Earlier in December, it treated a record number of patients within four hours. We are seeing 2,500 more patients within the four-hour standard every single day compared with 2010.
Nonetheless there are some particularly distressed local systems and the Government is taking action locally to manage them. These include:
- temporarily releasing time for GPs to support urgent care work;
- clinically triaging non-urgent calls to the ambulance service for residents of nursing and residential homes before they are taken to hospital;
- continuing to suspend elective care, including, where appropriate, suspension of non-urgent outpatient appointments;
- working with the Care Quality Commission on rapid re-inspection where this has the potential to re-open community health and social care bed capacity;
- and working with community trusts and community nursing teams to speed up discharge.
Taken together, these actions will give the NHS the flexibility to take further measures as and when appropriate at a local level. I am pleased that the Government will not allow, as happened so often in the Labour years and was set out so clearly by Sir Robert Francis in the case of Mid-Staffs, is for safe compassionate care to be sacrificed in order to meet targets.
The new transparency and inspection regime makes it harder to cut corners in the way that used to happen when beds were not being washed, there was poor infection control, and ambulances were being used as waiting rooms.
Looking ahead, we must remain resolute in our bid to sort out the long term problems - improving access to general practice through our £2.5 billion backed GP Forward View, fully integrating the health and social care systems, radically upgrading mental health provision, reshaping services to keep people well closer to home through the local Sustainability and Transformation plans, integrating a more clinically-focused community pharmacy sector into the NHS, and rolling out technological solutions including shared medical records and a smarter, more accessible NHS 111 service.
These measures taken together set out comprehensive plans to support the NHS during a difficult period. However, they will take time to come to fruition and in the meantime we will all continue to pay tribute to the NHS and social care staff who are working extremely hard over the winter, and throughout the year, both inside and outside our hospitals.