Woman, 94, bled to death waiting for NHS to treat golf-ball sized varicose vein
From the Daily Mirror: A great-grandmother bled to death because NHS rationing meant she could not have an emergency operation on a varicose vein.
Category: #ToryHospitals
#ToryHospitals
NHS ‘overwhelmed’ during collapse in waiting time standards in February
From Daily Mirror: The NHS has admitted being been “overwhelmed” during an unprecedented collapse in waiting time standards in February.
Crucial hospital waiting time targets could be scrapped after years of failure, Theresa May and the head of the NHS both hint
From the Daily Mirror: Crucial hospital waiting time targets could be scrapped after years of failure, Theresa May and the head of the NHS both hinted today.
Tory NHS cuts to staff and beds halt 70,000 operations
From the Daily Mirror: Nearly 70,000 NHS operations were cancelled last year due to a lack of beds, staff or equipment.
Anger as NHS hospitals scrap free parking for the sick and disabled
From Welfare Weekly: Union bosses and the Labour Party has responded angrily to news that hospitals are abolishing free parking for sick patients and people with disabilities.
The Mirror reports that Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust introduced the controversial policy just days before Christmas, with dialysis patients and carers among those will be affected by the cruel decision.
And Nottinghamshire University Hospitals Trust, which the Mirror claims made £3.6million from parking charges last year, are scrapping free parking for Blue Badge holders from January next year (2019).
Meet Ben Baddeley: facing a life of pain due to Tory NHS cuts
Amy Rose Baddeley writes… “My son Ben is 14 & sufferers from cerebral palsy. He needs crucial treatment that unfortunately is NOT funded on the NHS due to [Tory] funding cuts, leaving us to pick up medical bills of between £1,000 & £2,000 every month.
“My husband & i are trying everything we can to fundraise, work overtime & find the funds to pay for Ben’s crucial treatment because without it his muscles & nerves can’t develop correctly as he grows leaving him in pain on a daily basis.
[Donate to crowdfunder] [Ben’s Facebook page]
#ToryBritain #ToryNHSCHRISTMAS APPEAL from Amy Rose Baddeley…"My son Ben is 14 & sufferers from cerebral palsy. He…
Posted by Stop The Tories Channel on Sunday, December 2, 2018
NHS charged £1,000 for bottle of mouthwash by ‘ripoff’ drug companies
From The Independent: The NHS is being “ripped off” by drug manufacturers and pharmacists who are charging as much as £1,000 a bottle for pain-relieving mouthwash while the government demands efficiency savings on staff and hospitals, ministers have been warned.
NHS £20bn boost risks being spent to pay off debts, experts warn
From The Guardian: Theresa May is being urged to write off almost £12bn in overspending by hospitals or risk her £20bn NHS boost being spent on debt repayment rather than improving healthcare.
NHS experts are warning that promised expansions of cancer and mental healthcare will prove impossible because a large amount of the £20bn that the prime minister pledged this year will go to the NHS by 2023-24 will be used servicing historic debts.
The debts “are a millstone which has to be removed from around the neck of the NHS”, said Peter Carter, an ex-chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing. “Having to service the debt will significantly compromise the impact of the 3.4% [annual NHS budget rises May has pledged until 2023] to such an extent that new money will not enable the NHS to modernise; it will in effect help the NHS to stand still.”
“The impact of writing off the debt will have minimal effect on the national debt but will have a major impact on the ability of the NHS to maximise the new investment the government is promising”, added Carter. The NHS in England overspent by £4.3bn last year, while the 240 NHS trusts owe the Department of Health and Social Care £7.4bn in outstanding historic loans. NHS finance experts from the King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust thinktanks blamed the debt pile on persistent NHS underfunding of the NHS.”
NHS hospitals warn of lack of preparation for winter as figures reveal next year will be ‘tougher than ever’
From The Independent: The NHS is set to face an “even tougher winter” than the record-breaking crisis it weathered less than 10 months ago, as hospital bosses warn of staff and funding shortages.
‘Worst ever’ July A&E performance shows collapse in NHS standards under Theresa May
From Morning Star: Latest figures on A&E waiting times reveal the “astonishing” collapse in NHS standards under Theresa May, Labour said today.
Monthly statistics for July 2018 published by #NHS England show that just 89.3 per cent of people attending A&E were seen within four hours, well below the 95 per cent target.
That dismal performance means NHS England has consistently failed to meet the 95 per cent four-hour target — lowered from 98 per cent by the coalition government — since July 2015.
The number of people attending A&E in July 2018 also hit a record 2.176 million people in July 2018, the highest figure since records began in 2010.
NHS operation waiting lists reach 10-year high at 4.3m patients
From The Guardian: The number of patients waiting for an operation on the NHS has reached 4.3 million, the highest total for 10 years, official figures show.
Growing numbers are having to wait more than the supposed maximum of 18 weeks for planned non-urgent surgery such as a cataract removal or hip or knee replacement.
In May, for example, 211,434 patients had been on the waiting list for more than six months, up from the 197,067 who were in that position a month before and up by almost half compared to a year earlier, the NHS England data shows.
‘Shocking’ rise in coroner warnings over NHS patient deaths, says Labour
From The Guardian: The number of legal warnings issued by coroners over patient deaths in England attributed to NHS resourcing issues has risen by 40% in three years.
There were 42 prevention of future death reports (PFDs) relating to issues such as lack of beds, staff shortages and insufficiently trained agency staff in 2016 compared with 30 in 2013.
Coroners have a statutory duty to make reports to a person, organisation, local authority or government department or agency where the coroner believes that action should be taken to prevent future deaths.
Labour, which compiled the figures, blamed the increase on the government’s austerity policies.
Cancer patient waited 541 days for NHS treatment, report says
From The Guardian: The longest waits for cancer treatment in England have soared since 2010, with one patient waiting 541 days, analysis suggests.
Two-thirds of NHS trusts reported having at least one cancer patient waiting more than six months last year, while almost seven in 10 (69%) trusts said they had a worse longest wait than in 2010. This was reflected in the average longest wait rising to 213 days – 16 days longer than in the year the Conservatives entered government.
The official target requires at least 85% of cancer patients to have their first treatment within 62 days of referral by their GP, but this has not been met for 27 months in a row.
More than 100,000 people have waited more than two months for treatment to start since the target was first missed in January 2014.
NHS England suffers worst A&E waiting times on record
From Sky News: A&E performance fell to the lowest level on record in March as the NHS continues to face unprecedented pressure. Just 84.6% of accident and emergency patients in England were seen within four hours last month, dropping from 85% in February and compared to 90% in March 2017. And the number of people suffering waits of more than 12 hours more than tripled, compared to the same month the year before. Medics said the backlog created by the situation would leave some hospitals struggling to catch up. President of the Society for Acute Medicine Nick Scriven called the figures the “clearest indication yet of the eternal winter we now face in the NHS” and urged a turning point in planning.
Child forced to queue for six days for bed in NHS’s longest “trolley wait”
From Daily Mirror: A child in Derby was forced to wait over 145 hours for a mental health bed in hospital in the longest recorded “trolley wait”. Figures show A&E delays at the worst levels in the history of the NHS.
Capacity to handle 999 calls at risk, warns London ambulance service
From The Guardian: Britain’s busiest NHS ambulance service may no longer be able to answer all 999 calls quickly enough because its control rooms are chronically short of call handlers, it has warned.
The London ambulance service (LAS) disclosed this week that its capacity to respond to medical emergencies has been under threat because of a 20% shortfall in its control room staff.
Campaigners for patients have voiced alarm over the findings, saying the risk to the service could lead to people dying of strokes or heart attacks because an ambulance has taken longer than it should to reach them.
The Patients Association said the LAS’s inability to recruit enough staff posed a direct threat to patients.
NHS winter crisis: Ambulance diverts at their highest
From Sky News: The NHS continues to face severe pressure this winter, with high levels of ambulance diverts, patient handover delays and bed occupancy, the latest figures from NHS England reveal. Last week saw A&E departments send emergency patients elsewhere because they were too busy on 43 occasions, the highest number for a single week this winter. The figure was more than double the previous week and higher than the comparable week last year. Ambulance handover delays were also high, with 11,061 – around one in nine – waiting more than the target 30 minutes in the week to Sunday 28 January. Of these, 2,143 ambulances waited more than an hour to pass on their patient and get back on the road. And bed occupancy rose marginally, up to 95.1%, well ahead of both the recommended safe level of 85% and the predicted level of 92%.
Ambulance crisis ‘led to 20 deaths in east of England over Christmas’
From The Guardian: Twenty people died while waiting too long for ambulances in the east of England after the ambulance service there failed to seek outside help during the busy period over Christmas, a Labour MP has said, citing a whistleblower.
Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, used a point of order in the Commons to highlight what he said was an “exceptionally serious issue” with the East of England ambulance service, highlighted by the whistleblower.
The ambulance service became critically overstretched from 19 December, and senior managers wanted to move into what is called Reap 4, the fourth stage of the resource escalation action plan, which involves seeking outside help, Lewis told MPs.
Because neighbouring ambulance services were also overstretched, the assistance would most likely have come from the armed forces, he said.
Woman, 22, left lying on A&E floor in agony for five hours using coat as a pillow because there were no beds
From the Daily Mirror: A 22-year-old woman was left lying on the floor of A&E in agony for more than five hours – using a coat as her pillow.
NHS crisis: Patients are ‘dying prematurely’ in corridors, A&E bosses warn Theresa May
From The Independent: Patients being treated in NHS hospital corridors are ‘dying prematurely’ according to a letter from 68 senior A&E doctors warning Theresa May of “very serious concerns” about patient safety.