I’m a nurse and patients are losing their lives due to NHS crisis, it has to stop
WHEN nurses, junior doctors and ambulance workers are all threatening strike action, you know the NHS is on the brink.
England is already short of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives, while in Scotland, nursing and midwifery vacancies are up by 24 per cent in a year.
Despite a pay rise of £1,400 in England and £2,205 in Scotland, NHS staff are facing the cost of living crisis like millions of others in the UK.
Healthcare workers have long been calling for change, with many leaving the NHS due to burnout and stress.
Here Ella Walker and Clare O’Reilly reveal what it is like right now for front line NHS staff, and what Health Secretary Steve Barclay should be focussed on fixing.
Ambulances
IN July, a Sun Health investigation reported how the ambulance service was teetering on the brink of collapse.
A perfect storm of record temperatures and Covid rates meant people were warned to only call 999 in life-or-death situations.
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Many stricken with illness were left waiting hours for medical attention from under-pressure paramedics, while some were even told to make their own way to A&E.
Now, with winter coming, services will be even harder-pressed as we’re already noticing – in September, four patients waited more than 20 hours in the back of ambulances outside Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Shropshire.
This month has already seen 999 call handlers go on strike over pay, and ambulance staff have until November 29 to sign their ballot to strike before Christmas.
Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) managing director, Martin Flaherty, says “pressure on the urgent and emergency care system, especially the ambulance sector, remains intense” and the AACE has “serious concerns that things will get worse in the coming weeks and months”.
“Unprecedented delays at hospital emergency departments are a twin threat,” he adds. “They cause significant harm to patients forced to wait in the back of our ambulances, while those resources are tied up and therefore unable to respond to patients who need us out in the community.”
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Waiting lists
THE NHS backlog has become a monster of a problem – one that could take years to fully clear.
In England alone, wait lists hit a record seven million at the end of August, with 2.75 million patients not getting treatment for more than 18 weeks and almost 400,000 people waiting longer than a year.
Things aren’t much better in Scotland, where wait times for routine surgeries such as hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and tonsillectomies have shot up more than 140 per cent since 2017-18.
The delays come as a record 255,055 urgent cancer referrals were made by GPs in England in August – the highest since records began in 2009.
NHS bosses praised Sun writer Dame Deborah James, who died of bowel cancer in June, for her part in raising awareness of the disease and urging people to get checked.
But while more people are getting checked, just 75.6 per cent were seen by a specialist within two weeks – down on the 93 per cent target, and the second-worst performance on record.
Nursing
THE NHS has launched a recruitment campaign, We Are The NHS, to attract more people to nursing and fill tens of thousands of vacancies.
But this comes as 300,000 nurses across the UK are being asked to vote for strike action over pay and staff shortages – the ballot ends tomorrow and strikes could take place over Christmas.
Average weekly nursing pay dropped six per cent in real terms between 2011 and 2022, and according to Cavell Nurses’ Trust, 14 per cent of nurses now rely on food banks to support their families, while they work overtime caring for ours.
Sister Sarah* works for one of the biggest NHS hospital trusts in the UK. She manages a team of more than 30 people and in her 17-year career has never seen morale as low.
“The level of care patients receive now is nowhere near as good as it was when I qualified,” she says.
“There are daily lapses and mistakes because there simply aren’t enough staff. Blood tests are being missed, referrals not done. It’s getting to the point it’s not safe.”
She adds: “We had a patient recently who sat in outpatients for almost the whole day and should have had blood tests but no one passed up the paperwork.
“Just last week we were supported by agency workers who weren’t trained and skilled enough to do what they were supposed to, but were better paid than the exhausted staff on the ward.”
Sarah says not an hour goes by without her thinking about work. “It’s just so disheartening,” she says.
“No one feels appreciated and morale is on the floor. We’re unable to give the level of care to patients we want to.”
Mental health
THE pandemic put extreme pressure on NHS mental health services.
Beds are worryingly scarce. The NHS pays £2billion a year to private hospitals to make up the shortfall – and now a record 400,000 children a month are requiring treatment.
What’s more, the cost of living crisis is set to exacerbate symptoms for many. According to a survey by charity Mind, 33 per cent of people are less able to afford activities that benefit their mental wellbeing since April. So it’s with a heavy heart that mental health nurse David* has filled out his ballot form and voted for industrial action.
Having worked for the NHS since he was 17, David has seen referrals go up nearly 50 per cent in the last two years, while the Care Quality Commission has found patient satisfaction is currently “poor”.
So what must new health boss do?
MP Steve Barclay was reappointed as Health Secretary last week, and his inbox is going to be overflowing. This is what those in the know think he should tackle as a priority…
THE NURSE SAYS: Mr Barclay needs to spend a day on a stretched ward to experience it for real. He needs to take home the wage NHS staff do for that level of stress and exhaustion and reflect on the work we do.
We need enhanced bonuses every quarter and ultimately bring back the nursing bursary as a lot of students cannot afford to do the career they aspire to.
THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL SAYS: The health secretary needs to reimburse the lost pay over the last 12 years.
Up to 20 per cent of real terms pay has been slashed and that’s unsustainable.
He also needs to stop closing services, especially when it comes to mental health. The amount of beds lost in the last decade is incredibly troubling.
THE BMA SAYS: Professor Philip Banfield, BMA council chair, says: “With a PM who’s previously said tackling the backlog was the single biggest public emergency, Mr Barclay should find overwhelming support to give the health service the investment it desperately needs.
“He needs to meet with doctors with the BMA to hear what is needed to make the NHS safe for patients and a place doctors still want to work in.”
THE GP SAYS: Dr Aslam says: “The government needs to drive greater investment into self-care campaign initiatives that educate people to seek pharmacy advice rather than adding to GP appointment pressures.
This will help relieve the minor ailment burden on GPs.”
THE AACE SAYS: Martin Flaherty says: “Hundreds of thousands of hours are wasted by unnecessary handover delays at emergency departments. More needs to be done to eliminate these delays once and for all, if we are to return to being able to provide the level of safe service that patients expect and deserve.”
David, 32, says: “We’ve got no more staff, no more beds and no more funding or resources.
“We’re working in a broken system and it’s unsustainable. Patients are losing their lives because of it. It has to stop.” David used to love his job, but it’s taken a toll on his own mental health.
He says: “It’s led me to some dark places in the last two years and I can’t see it getting any better unless things change.
“We didn’t mind being exhausted too much because we could afford to go out with friends or go on holiday and recharge.
“But with the cost of living and the lack of a real terms pay rise, me and a lot of other nurses I know are struggling to make ends meet, and the thought of a disposable income is a thing of the past.”
GP surgeries
IF you’ve tried to book a GP appointment recently, you’ll know surgeries are struggling.
This month the General Medical Council called for red tape to be cut so that skilled doctors in non-training roles could be redeployed from hospitals to GP surgeries.
Meanwhile, a Royal College of General Practitioners’ survey of UK GPs found 65 per cent are worried patient safety is being compromised by workloads, and 42 per cent said they’re likely to leave the profession in the next five years.
The latter issue will only worsen staffing levels, when the Government is already struggling to achieve its goal of recruiting 6,000 more GPs.
NHS and This Morning GP, Dr Philippa Kaye, is feeling the shortfall. She said: “One of the biggest challenges in general practice is staff recruitment and retention. We need thousands more doctors and nurses.”
We can all play a part in reducing pressure on GPs. Dr Nisa Aslam, from Puressentiel, says: “GPs are seeing lots of people coming to the surgery with common ailments such as coughs and colds to headaches – pharmacists can advise how to manage these ailments and refer you to the GP if necessary.
“Pharmacists can also help with medication queries.
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“It’s important to take as much control of your health as you can. Immune health is vital especially at this time of the year.
“Take any medication as recommended, eat a healthy diet, get plenty of exercise, and don’t drink to excess or smoke.”