The NHS has been made a non-issue in this election campaign as if all were fine. All the parties, I think, say that they will maintain or increase funding in real terms. So that's all right then. Except that evidence keeps on piling up that it is not.

Here is the latest about overworked and under-experienced doctors in Accident and Emergency departments at night:

On average, the survey found doctors were responsible for 61 patients, but the range was from one to 400. Almost one in 10 teams reported that the most senior member on duty in charge of a ward was a junior doctor in their first two years of training. Only 6 per cent of teams included a consultant on duty at night.

This information is very much in tune with what I was told by a consultant at a large, well-known hospital in West London. She said that every month the senior people at the hospital meet to discuss the accident and emergency department. And while it takes well over 20 people to discuss it, meanwhile, in the department itself, there was sometimes just one doctor on duty through parts of the night. This is the problem of the NHS in a nutshell. There are lots of staff but only a minority of them are actually doing front line work.

The result, when you go to A&E, is that - despite the targets and the attention the problem gets - there are long delays and people are seen by doctors far more junior than is desirable. The accident and emergency care in Britain is poor and we have no choice. I have several recent anecdotal reports of people waiting hours to be seen. Too many doctors are junior and the ones who are there are rushed off their feet.

Incidentally this story does not appear to have been covered by the BBC. A search of Google News suggests that only three or perhaps four newspapers have covered it. But for all of us who expect that sooner or later we or family members we love may depend on an A&E department, it matters a great deal.

The above quote was taken from the coverage in the Independent.

Postscript:

Of course if it is that bad in a part of the NHS that gets a lot of attention, it is bound to be worse where publicity is not so easily obtained.

This from the Mail:

The survey of GPs, in Pulse magazine, shows that patient services are being directly affected by the Whitehall directive.

Pulse asked 370 GPs whether cutbacks were occurring in their

areas. Fifty-five per cent said they were, and another 33 per cent said they were planned within the next few months.

Dr Krishna Chaturvedi, a GP in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, said he was seeing cuts in his region, including in blood tests and the loss of a health visitor.

Community nursing is also suffering, as is end-of-life care and dietetic and nutrition services. 'The list is endless,' he said.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS

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