The NHS is in a humanitarian crisis

The Society of Acute Medicine has revealed that the NHS currently has “third world levels of staffing and third world levels of beds”. For the Red Cross, our NHS is in the midst of a ‘humanitarian crisis’. This language may sound vitriolic, but a crisis of this magnitude is something medical professionals have been warning politicians about for years. Over the weekend, 42 A&Es had to divert patients to other hospitals due to their inability to deal with the number of patients coming in. Many of those that actually made it into the hospitals were left on beds in corridors, a damning indictment of the sheer lack of capacity in our NHS at the moment.

Indeed, there has been a 212% increase in the number of patients waiting more than 4 hours to be treated, and A&E attendances over the last ten years have increased from 16.5M to 21.8M. We constantly hear about the mounting challenge posed by an ageing population. Surely then it follows that we will have boosted our ability to cope with these additional pressures? Evidently not. Acute in-patient capacity is being reduced in many trusts as part of the government’s sustainability and transformation plans; an elaborate cost-cutting exercise which places meeting financial targets in the name of ‘efficiency savings’ over patient safety. The Kings Fund estimates that NHS providers and commissioners ended 2015/16 with a £1.85 billion financial deficit. All of this coming from a government claiming to have learned from the mistakes of Mid-Staffs and vowing to never put financial obligations before patient safety.

The answer to the crisis lies in progressive taxation reform, not budgetary cuts. Despite us now being the world’s 6th biggest economy (thanks Brexit), we spend just over 8% of GDP on healthcare. The IFS estimates that a 1% increase in the rate of income tax could raise an additional £5bn in revenue; reversing the cut in corporation tax could raise an additional £1.5bn. Neither of these are particularly radical suggestions if they result in a health service that is properly staffed and resourced.

The bulk of this funding should be used to increase in-patient capacity, address staffing shortages, and bolster the social care system to reduce unnecessary or avoidable admissions. The Conservatives are wrong to use spin about weekend mortality rates – we should seek to improve outcomes over the entire week, acknowledging the concerns of junior doctors earlier this year.

We have a Prime Minister and Health Secretary going on national television to debate the semantics of whether the NHS is in a ‘humanitarian crisis’, or just your regular run-of-the-mill crisis. Instead of focussing on their image they should sack the spin-doctors, and work with the real doctors to make sure there is no crisis to debate in the first place.