LONDON (Guardian) -- The crisis engulfing the NHS will continue until Easter, UK health leaders have warned, as senior doctors accused ministers of letting patients die needlessly through inaction.
More than a dozen trusts and ambulance services have declared critical incidents in recent days, with soaring demand, rising flu and Covid cases and an overstretched workforce piling pressure on the health service.
But amid warnings that up to 500 people a week may be dying due to delays in emergency care alone, and of oxygen for seriously ill patients running out in parts of England, NHS leaders warned more chaos was expected until April.
“It seems likely that the next three months will be defined by further critical incidents needing to be declared and the quality of care being compromised,” said Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Ministers face growing pressure to grip the crisis. The British Medical Association (BMA) said the government’s “deafening” silence and failure to act was a “political choice” that was leading to patients “dying unnecessarily”.
The Liberal Democrats urged the government to recall parliament, while Labour blamed government “mismanagement” for creating a sense of “jeopardy” around the NHS.
Taylor said the situation had reached crisis point: “Some of our members have said their ward staffing numbers are now below minimum levels as they work hard to set up more escalation spaces to support arrivals from ambulances, that they have had instances where their oxygen cylinders have run out temporarily, and that some of their patients have waited over two days for a bed.
“High rates of flu and Covid which have more than doubled, ongoing issues with delayed hospital discharges which is leaving over 12,000 medically fit patients stuck in hospital, and the aftershock of industrial action are compounding the longer-term issues of over 130,000 NHS vacancies, a decade-long lack of investment in capital and an elective backlog which continues to grow past seven million people.”
Taylor spoke as thousands more paramedics, nurses and doctors prepare to walk out over pay and conditions. Ambulance staff are due to strike on January 11 and 23, while nurses will walk out on January 18 and 19. A ballot for industrial action by junior doctors in England will open on January 9.
The mounting crisis comes as the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued a warning to families about high levels of flu, Covid-19 and scarlet fever as children return to education and childcare settings.
“If your child is unwell and has a fever, they should stay home from school or nursery until they feel better and the fever has resolved,” the UKHSA chief medical adviser, Prof Susan Hopkins, said. She added that adults should not “visit vulnerable people unless urgent” when feeling unwell.