Doctors’ chief warns of an ‘NHS collapse this winter’

[blacksunday]

Jane Dacre, head of the Royal College of Physicians, warns that hospital services are at breaking point

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As the voice of hospital doctors in England at a time when the NHS is famously pressurised, Jane Dacre, 59, president of the Royal College of Physicians, has to confront an unusually large number of issues affecting her 30,000 members at the service’s frontline every day. There are gaps in hospitals’ medical rotas, the result of a significant shortage of doctors in many areas of care; bed shortages; the fact that 80% of acute hospitals are in the red; the prospect of the NHS becoming a seven-day service in order to fulfil a key Conservative election pledge; poor morale; and the NHS’s declining share of GDP.

con'td

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/13/doctors-chief-nhs-collapse-winter-jane-dacre-royal-college-physicians

The NHS is ALWAYS seen in crisis and it could have been worse with Labour still in charge - spending money often failing to get to the front line e.g. by 2008, there were 13,000 fewer general and acute beds than in 1999, largely through Private Finance Initiate 30-year debts on Hospital Trust balance sheets eating into hospitals annual budgets now, and for years to come.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9356942/Blair-defends-PFI-as-NHS-trusts-face-bankruptcy.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8779598/Private-Finance-Initiative-where-did-all-go-wrong.html

Far more money is going into a reformed NHS under the Conservatives who are working with the Head on the NHS on an overall plan to cover 3 million more citizens than when Labour blew the money they spent.

As for the doctors, they quite £££ enjoyed a Labour government, if they kept their jobs.

“Blair's legacy: Health”
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4555344.stm

“No government has ever invested more in the health service than Labour under Blair and yet the NHS is mired in deficits with patients taking to the streets to prevent the closure of their local hospitals.”

“Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: "I feel sorry for Blair, but the money has been wasted."

“This seems to be the crux of the issue. The public was promised record amounts of money would flow into the NHS. And so it has.”

“But the problem is it has not necessarily gone where many would expect.”

“Once pay hikes - consultants and GPs have both received lucrative increases - covering for deficits and rising drug costs are taken into account, the 7% budget increases actually equate to about 2% for services, according to the King's Fund.”

”Surveys have repeatedly shown that when asked what they think of the NHS people reply it is in crisis.”

2003/4 ”House of Commons Health Committee; GP Out-of-Hours Services”
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmhealth/697/697.pdf

”11. According to the BMA, as many as 90% of GPs are expected to opt out of providing out-of-hours cover.10 As PCTs take over responsibility for providing GP out-of-hours” They were warned and clearly right.

March 2007: “Doctors' training system 'a shambles'”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544307/Doctors-training-system-a-shambles.html

“As much as £2 billion has been spent on the training of up to 8,000 doctors who find themselves without a new job under a Government initiative.”

Wasn't it going to collapse last year, and the year before that?

It's a bit like those Arctic winter forecasts.

Same shit different day!

I suspect as those damned Russian swans have arrived a record 25-days early, someone sees a particularly 'cold' political opportunity ahead.

Capacity is an ongoing problem that somehow we need to get ahead of.

Those within the NHS wanted solutions on top of money being thrown at it, the 7-day malarkey is an attempt to do that; it seems to me many senior people within are in the position to retire whether stressed over 5-days or 7-days.

In the U.S. they are going because of Obamacare being rolled out, I believe.

The UK is in a much better position to throw taxpayers money at a REFORMED NHS than we were in 2010, but still an extra £10 bil went in over that first parliament.

Get the NHS comprehensive plan in place to provide the full services to meet our capacity problem and THEN come down on government to come up with the money to fund it - and if they don't, let them/Osborne tell us why not.

(Its like Council sitting on their arses since 2004 to come up with comprehensive planning to ensure homes are built and then now complaining not enough homes are being built.)