The presidents of several medical associations such as the Royal College of Surgeons and the College of Emergency Medicine have sent a letter to The Daily Telegraph complaining about the fact that ministers don’t act enough in order to give patients “the highest levels of supportive care.”
They believe that the NHS was successful in cutting down waiting times for operations, and completely disregarded the need of “the patients admitted as emergencies.” Although the good thing about waiting times is that NHS patients are treated in the first 18 weeks after being referred by the family doctor, the emergency patients are not yet as fortunate as they, quoting the presidents, are “squeezed in at the end of the day”.
There are close the 4.2 million surgical interventions that are made under NHS in England. This information comes from the Royal College of Surgeons, the same institution which states that half of those interventions consist of emergency operations. Many people believe that an emergency intervention happens only to those who come alive out of car crashes or other intense incidents, but most of these interventions happen on elderly people suffering from acute pains. For example, a knee surgery can be both a pre-planned operation as well as an emergency one.
Any condition is bound to complications, and a sudden, more immediate intervention may be necessary. The doctors know of many such occasions and they write:
People presenting to hospital with potentially life-threatening problems are entitled to receive the best possible treatment, right from the start of their hospital stay.
The RCS say about emergency patients that their cases are
inadequate with priority often given to elective cases in order to meet arbitrary targets.
Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health need to change the standards in the emergency health interventions, especially for patients that reach a critical stage.
“This has come at a cost as care for emergency patients has been institutionally neglected. These patients are often left languishing while they wait for an operation, suffer from a lack of access to senior doctors and receive suboptimal post-operative care. They deserve better.”
A spokesman from the Department of Health said:
We welcome this report and will consider its findings. We agree that it’s important for everyone to be seen as soon as it’s clinically appropriate, whether it’s an emergency or for another reason.
NHS needs to change the standards for emergency situations and interventions, as well as give support to patients that require immediate attention.
