METRO article 9/8/19

The NHS is facing a ‘winter crisis’ all year round, medics have warned, after demand and delays reached an all-time high last month.

Nearly 2.3 million people visited A&E departments in July – with more than one in eight sitting there for more than four hours.

Meanwhile, the waiting list for routine operations hit an all-time high of 4.4 million, with a record 600,000 patients on it longer than the government’s 18-week target……..experts say the health service is short of 100,000 staff in the face of unprecedented demand.

‘The winter crisis of A&E has merged straight into a summer crisis, with no sign of the usual summer recovery’, said Richard Murray, chief executive of think tank The King’s Fund. He said addressing staff shortages ‘will require a raft of measures and must be a priority for the government’.

A&E attendances were up 160,000 on June and 266,000 higher than January 2018. The four-hour target time was missed for more than 275,000 patients and 57,000 waited on trolleys more than four hours before even being admitted.

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