Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion of stopping walk-in patients attending hospital emergency departments has prompted complete bewilderment and anger from people waiting to be treated at one such department, at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital.
“What is the man thinking of, is he some kind of dunderhead?” asked Joyce Harbutt, who was heavily pregnant and frantically seeking help for a surprise bleed. “Does he not understand the meaning of accident and emergency? It is what it says and that is it provides emergency treatment for people who require it.”
Dr Helen Thomas, a senior medical adviser to NHS England said this week that the Health Secretary was considering testing a system of turning away patients who go to an A&E without first being referred by a GP or the NHS 111 phone service.
“Jeremy Hunt has mentioned to some of my colleagues, maybe we should have a ‘talk before you walk’ and we may well pilot that,” Thomas told a medical conference.
Another patient, Alec Freeman, was less than complimentary as he sat waiting for A&E attention in Luton. “Typical bloody Tory, he wants to stop treating the people who need it most when he likely goes to a private hospital,” he said. Freeman had his arm strapped to his body after falling at work and feared the arm was broken. “I need treatment because I’m in excruciating pain and all I can get is something over the counter to ease the pain. The nurses have told me it needs X-raying so they know how to treat it.”
No Time to Wait
The line of waiting people all seemed to require immediate medical help rather than turning up with a condition that could instead wait for a GP appointment. None of them had needed the guidance of a GP or telephone service to know they needed urgent help.
The Labour Party, the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Patients Association said Hunt’s idea simply revealed the depth of the financial crisis facing the NHS.
Thomas had admitted that even piloting the idea was a “hot potato” but said early discussions had been held. “I think it’s been done in other countries where they’ve actually said you can’t come into ED (emergency departments) until you’ve talked on referral, or you have to have that sort of docket that you’re given by having talked on the phone that you do need to come to ED,” she said.
Speaking to an audience at an Urgent Health UK event in Birmingham, Thomas said that only 20% of walk-in patients called 111 before attending A&E. Of the 80% who did not, she said: “Some of them will need ED but there’s an awful lot that won’t.”
Bouncers on the Door?
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, that with fears of a winter health crisis Hunt’s suggestion had removed any doubt about how dire the state of the NHS had become. “The NHS is being pushed to the brink with underfunding so bad that ministers are in secret discussions to ban sick or injured people from walking into A&Es,” he said.
“Patients deserve better. Preventing patients from walking into A&Es is not a plan to help the NHS but an abdication of responsibility. Labour would implement a proper plan to make sure accident and emergency services are available to those who need them.”
Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association, said the A&E idea was impractical. “Will the parent of a child who has fallen and broken their arm, for instance, really have to call 111 or get a GP referral first?”, she asked. “Are they even likely to know such a bar exists? Will there be bouncers on the door, turning people away?”
“Maybe a pilot (scheme) will identify some good ways of reducing genuinely inappropriate use of A&E but that this idea is even circulating speaks volumes about the consequences of the Government’s decision to underfund the NHS.”
by Bob Graham
The post NHS: Fury at Jeremy Hunt’s A&E Proposal appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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