WHILE Shadow Health Secretary Harriet Harman debated which exclusive school to send her son to. diverting media attention from the crisis in the NHS, the cold winter weather has been cruelly exposing the inadequacy of the skeleton service remaining in many British hospitals.
Major hospitals including St Mary's and Great Ormond Street in London have been turing away children with meningitis because of a lack of intensive care beds. Others have been strug: gling with growing numbers emergency admissions. So bad has the crisis become that in December six prominent NHS Trusts in south London co-signed a unique letter of protest.
The problems they highlight are faced by almost every major hospital across the country, and will be repeated with every onset of cold weather They pointed out that hospital bed numbers have been cut back so far that one hospital had up to 52 emergency patients (equivalent to (wo wards) spending the On one Saturday, one of the six, St Helier Hospital in Carshalton, even ran out of trolleys, and was forced to treat patients in ambulances outside.
The letter, signed on December I5. is the first time acute services Trusts have collectively complained at the impact of overent polis Util now these quango bodies have preferred to suffer in silence, reling on back-stage lobbying rather than admit they cannot cope.
Roy Leach, NUT National Exec., personal capacity IT IS TIME to for FACE to face the future as it comes up to its conference on February 10.
The key task for FACE (Fight Cuts in Education) in the coming year is to mainta in the momentum built up since Its formation barety a year ago.
it has grown rapidy and has had a major impact on the British political landscape. In March and September it organised the largest education demonstrations in over a decade- at 15,000 and 10,000 respectively.
And in close co-operation with ceacher unions, mainly the NUT, it has mobilised tens of thousands more supporters outside town and county halls.
But the real measure of FACE's success s the shift in the Government's priorities and that it has had to promise The letter, adressed to the chair of South Thames regional health authordictment of the NHS market reforms and of the dogmatic insistence by Tory Ministers that hospital beds should close to fund developments in primary ano comitaay carc All six top consultants - medical cos so cons conan C mittees from St George's, St Helier. Queen Mary's Rochampton, Kingston, Mayday and Ensom Hosputals - protest first and foremost at the "lack of beds across the SW London area and the detrimental effect of this on patients".
Iney go on.
"* There was a view that Hospitals should continue to reduce beds as a consequence of increased Day Case Surgery, shorter stay in hospitals and increased Community Care and Social Services.
** However there is instead a steady increase in medical emergencies requiring admission and increasing difficulties in discharging patients ... In one hospital there has been a 22 percent increase in admissions through A&B comores wil ts e sast cas "* These patients first fill the Medical beds and then have to overflow into unsuitable beds in Surgical wards: on December 4 one Trust reports 42 mediin Surgical wards, and one reported 90.
"* When all beds are full, the Emergenies (often very sick) log- jam back into A&E, 'overnighting" on trolleys which are insufficientiy supervised. uncomfortable and extremely successful for both patients and teaching staff. ACK MAJOR NOT OUR TEACHERS HE CUTS SAVE LIVES VE LIVES KTH RIES. One hospital reported 26 trolley patients in A&E one evening, and in November one reported 52 A&E trolley over-nighters".
"• Neighbouring Trusts are unable to help as they face the same problem.
"• The pressures are similar on ITU/CU/HDU beds for the severely ill. Last Tuesday, the nearest ITU avail• able was Basildon, and as you know from recent events, this is part of a nationwide problem."
Pointing out that the influx of emergencies into a reduced number of beds DEALI Ropid increose in emergency omissionsieaves health workers in misery — ond ongry! is cading to the canceuabon or waltng list admissions, the Trusts sum up:
"Thus the current situation which has no flexibility in the system for the increasing number of admissions. is throwing impossible stress on patients and pressure on the staff."
But matters are even worse: there are financial penalties imposed on Trusts if they cancel too many waiting list ad. missions:
"The financial issues of the 'contracting process' make the current situation more ridiculous.
We had sadmiced the phicse phy of the reforms was 'money follow*Instesd Trusts struggling to conc with emergencies report that they are tola by purchasers that Iney will not De paid for the (extra) work they do. One Trust reports they are owed £1.25 milsion for emergency work — lhe Pur chaser is declining to pay."
The letter quotes examples of the clash of interests between the purchasing health authorities and "us, "The Providers", who have to look after the patients".
h same soy stoei mais oli parts of the country. Ministers have forced through a rapid run-down of acute hospital beds, without any evidence that GPs could step into the breen orta cotu tase se ices could cope.
Now a rapid increase in mergency admissions is reducing many front-line hospitals to chaos, leaving patients and health workers in misery.
More cash is clearly needed to relieve the growing pressure on inadequate numoers oi ocos But the Tories' crazy, bureaucratic IaTAC SySEulls which encourages over-paid purchasing bosses to make impossible demands of Trusts, while Trists seek to halance their books by putting the squeeze on hard-pressed staff, must also be swept away before more damage is dono to the fabric of the NHS.
New Labour's failure to spell out such a clear, simple response means that the NHS weapon, like that of education. is still not being effectively deployed against the Tories.
SAVE OUR HOSPITALS