‘Seven in 10 nurses say they deliver care daily in the most unsuitable places – not just corridors but also in cupboards, car parks, shower rooms and even toilets – Florence Nightingale would weep’
Patients languishing in hospital corridors should be the exception, but it is now the norm in today’s crumbling NHS.
Seven in 10 nurses say they deliver care daily in the most unsuitable places – not just corridors but also in cupboards, car parks, shower rooms and even toilets. Conditions which would have made Florence Nightingale weep.
It puts lifesavers such as cardiac monitors and oxygen out of reach, makes CPR harder to carry out, increases the danger of infection and leads to worse clinical outcomes.
Lives are undoubtedly being lost as exhausted medical staff are unable to even prioritise the priorities. No wonder so many are suffering burnout. We visited Epsom Hospital in Surrey which has devised a system to almost halve the average waiting time in ambulances.
While that enables paramedics to get out to 999 calls faster, it means patients are head to toe in A&E and repeatedly shunted into any space available as more ambulances unload. The NHS now faces an endless cycle of too many patients for too few beds, a circle hospitals cannot square without fundamental reform. Health Secretary Wes Streeting is struggling to undo 14 years of Tory NHS neglect. But we fear he is drawing his measure for success too narrowly.
Delivering 40,000 extra routine hospital appointments a week is welcome. But A&E departments also need urgent intensive care. And there is a worry that solving one problem will be at the expense of the other. That would be unacceptable.
Action is needed now to hire extra emergency staff and speed up hospital discharges to make more beds available… before the A&E crisis becomes a full-blown catastrophe.
Forces champ
Armed forces personnel can join a trade union but not take industrial action as that would jeopardise the defence of the realm. That means their ability to improve working conditions, or get redress for unfairness and injustice, is limited. Which is why they need their own independent champion.
Parliament will this week vote for an Armed Forces Commissioner to hold the MoD and military chiefs to account. Corrie star Antony Cotton is himself a champion for service families, and his main beef is about the atrocious state of their housing.
Our brave servicemen and women give their all for their country. The Commissioner must ensure their country meets all their needs.
It’s Brollywood
The devastating Los Angeles fires mean Hollywood must look to Britain for movie making. We have the talent, the studios and the expertise to take up the slack wrought by the destruction on Tinseltown.
Hooray for Brollywood!