The Care Quality Commission’s annual report has set out that the health and care system in England is gridlocked with patients at risk as they cannot access the support and care they need.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that the problem was creating long ambulance and A&E waits.
The summary of the report sets out:
‘Twelve months ago, we highlighted the risk of a tsunami of unmet need across all sectors, with increasing numbers of people unable to access care. We said that funding must be used to enable new ways of working that recognise the inter-connectedness of all health and care services, not just to prop-up existing approaches. Today, our health and care system is in gridlock and this is clearly having a huge negative impact on people’s experiences of care.’
Chief Executive of the CQC, Ian Trenholm, said:
“People are stuck – stuck in hospital because there isn’t the social care support in place for them to leave, stuck in emergency departments waiting for a hospital bed to get the treatment they need, and stuck waiting for ambulances that don’t arrive because those ambulances are stuck outside hospitals waiting to transfer patients.”
The CQC said that the system could no longer operate effectively.
The report blamed staffing shortages, with one-in-ten NHS and social care sector posts being vacant.
Significant criticism was made of maternity care, with the CQC pointing out that two out of five services were rated as not good enough, with signs that services were becoming worse. Mr Trenholm said that maternity services were also suffering from a lack of staff, but more so there seemed to be a cultural problem where the concerns were not being listened to as they should, nor prompting the necessary response.
The report sets out:
“The quality of maternity care is not good enough. Action to ensure all women have access to safe, effective, and truly personalised maternity care has not been sufficiently prioritised to reduce risk and help prevent tragedies from occurring.”
Mr Trenholm went on to say that the wider issues across the health and care systems were linked to “historic under-investment” and that, without any action, would only worsen. It is felt that this would be especially prevalent in poorer areas, where access to care outside hospitals was most under pressure.
The report highlights that the problems faced in the healthcare system are not just the inevitable short-term issues of increased risk of harm. There also needs to be consideration of the fact that ill health or those having to care for family members results in people being driven out of the labour market.
One major survey of patients showed that people satisfied with the NHS overall had dropped from 53% to 36%, and that more people were dissatisfied than satisfied.
Patient group, Healthwatch England, said “It’s starting to affect the public’s confidence that the NHS will be there for them” and that the problems would be putting “lives at risk” and widening health inequalities.
NHS England has acknowledged that there is a challenging time ahead. It has promised extra support to keep patients out of hospitals, including the roll-out of rapid response teams to treat patients at home after incidents such as falls.
A summary of the CQC report can be found on the CQC website here.
Comment
It has been widely reported over many months, if not years, that the NHS is struggling. Staffing shortages and lack of investment are clearly key factors in the problems faced, and without these very basics, there has to be question marks as to how improvements can be made.
People requiring healthcare should feel safe and confident that they will receive the care and support they need to help them recover and return back to life as normal as swiftly as possible. It is unthinkable that patients are beginning to feel that they cannot trust this will be the case, but that is what the figures and clear report of the CQC show.
Inaction is not an option at this stage. The healthcare service cannot continue to operate effectively or safely as things are. It is imperative that the NHS is put back to the top of the list of priorities for the Government so that vast improvement can be made to deal with backlogs and prevalent issues, to ensure patients are not being failed.
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Danielle Young is a Legal Director in our Medical Negligence team, which has been ranked in tier one by the independently researched publication, The Legal 500.
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