23/12/2017

UK hospitals cancel thousands of operations to make way for Christmas patient influx

UK hospitals cancel thousands of operations to make way for Christmas patient influxTens of thousands of people will have their surgeries delayed under contingency plans for an already stretched National Health Service to deal with a post-Christmas surge in patients. Critics say services are being “rationed.
In yet another worrying sign of crisis in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), hospitals are being ordered to put off non-urgent operations, such as knee and hip replacements, to cope with an expected surge in the number of people seeking treatment over the winter, likely due to the cold weather                                                                                  The directive, given by the NHS National Emergency Pressures Panel, a new group of senior doctors, nurses and managers set up to advise NHS England, is expected to see around 15,000 operations rescheduled.
Doctors are also being asked to carry out more day procedures rather than ones in which patients have to stay in the hospital to recover.
Pauline Philip, the NHS national director for urgent and emergency care, claimed the plans were being rolled out as “the NHS is about to enter into the most challenging part of the year, with spikes in demand likely after the Christmas and New Year breaks.”
It comes amid reports of the NHS already being stretched beyond capacity, and of staff working day in, day out to deal with the surge in requests for medical treatment.The Society for Acute Medicine, which represents doctors who look after patients admitted through A&E but who do not need surgery, cautioned the plans might have to stay in place as late as February.
“The positive of this is action to relieve pressure on the system.
The bad news is that it has happened already, without much actual unexpected stress on the system,” Dr. Nick Scriven, the society’s president, told the Guardian.
“We have not yet seen anything out of the ordinary, weather or infection-wise, so my belief is that this stance will need to be extended until at least the end of February,” he added.

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