The NHS employs more than 1.5 million people, putting it in the top five of the world’s largest workforces, together with the US Department of Defence, McDonalds, Walmart and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The NHS in England is the biggest part of the system by far, catering to a population of 54.3 million and employing around 1.2 million people. Of those, the clinically qualified staff include 150,273 doctors, 40,584 general practitioners (GPs), 314,966 nurses and health visitors, 18,862 ambulance staff, and 111,127 hospital and community health service (HCHS) medical and dental staff.
The situation in NHS is getting from bad to worse by the day. The A & E department of most hospitals are unable to cope with the rising demand, static capacity, shortage of staff, nurses, midwifes and facing austerity. Waiting time has increased substantially. Currently there are 6,400 fewer nurses compared to 1997. NHS health service is 50 per cent lower than the other European countries which is damning indictment. However, the relentless pressure on A&Es is taking its toll on staff. This is already reflected in problems of recruitment and retention and will create a much greater risk to patients than the current issues.
This is seriously affecting the care and treatment of the elderly. Patient have to wait up to 3 hours in the ambulances and 6 hours on the trolley in the corridor. This is unacceptable. Also it is difficult to get suitable beds for the patients. Furthermore they are constantly required to move to other wards when they are not in a fit state to be moved. Poor strategic decisions and budget cuts to care services have exacerbated pressures on emergency care.
There is acute shortage of mid-wives in the maternity wards placing mothers and new born babies at risk. There is no doubt that the NHS staff are doing their best but it is difficult to cope with the enormous pressure they have to work under and to provide good care. Psychiatry patients are not getting the service they are supposed to get and are worse off than other patients. On top of that aging population in UK is increasing and need better health care which unfortunately they are not getting.
Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing stated: NHS Direct and replacing it with NHS 111 was a massive mistake. NHS Direct was properly staffed with nurses and was well-placed to provide patients with appropriate advice. That clinical expertise has now been lost and it looks as though the service is sending people to A&E who do not need to be there. In England, the district nurses numbers have decreased from 12,000 in 2003 to 5,500 today. The Government has to invest in the existing nursing workforce and increase the number of training places. The fundamental issue is that the NHS isn’t receiving the resources it needs.
It is time now to review the whole structure of NHS and new model created to deal with the demands of the 21st century. The old system is not fit for purpose.
Baldev Sharma
Harrow
