What would you expect the NHS to do? Cancel all planned, but non emergency operations until February leaving thousands of surgeons with nothing to do.
I was reading some of the work of Professor Enrique Casalino in Paris. Last year he noted that the number of patients attending his A&E had increased by 10%. On January 1st 2017 he noted that the average attendance had risen from 215 to 231 and the number of admissions from 25-35 a day to 30-40a day. He points out that this is an additional 5 to 10 admissions a day and this small increase puts the hospital into a precarious balance.
“The problem comes from the tension on the availability of hospital beds downstream of emergencies.”
I believe that is a problem faced all around the world and particularly in the UK. Pauline Philip, the National Director for Urgent and Emergency care believes that we need to free up more than 3,000 beds this winter and the government have responded by providing £350mto NHS trusts to help them…
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