Labour urges action over A&E crisis

Operating theatres are being left idle because there are not enough beds available for post-operative care, it has been claimed
3 June 2013

Labour is calling an emergency House of Commons debate this week to urge the Government to help relieve pressure on accident and emergency departments, amidst reports of a rise in cancelled operations.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said the Government needs to put steps in place to ease the current crisis and that action should also taken be to avoid job cuts.

It comes as a senior surgeon said record numbers of elective operations at hospitals are being cancelled as a result of increasing pressure on A&E.

Figures from NHS England show more than 220 operations a day were cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice during the first three months of 2013, The Observer reported.

Mr Burnham has written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt asking him to ensure every hospital in England is operating with safe staffing levels. He said: "This matter is now urgent as there is clear evidence that the situation could soon deteriorate even further. The NHS cannot take a further round of front-line jobs cuts without putting patients at risk. The Health Secretary must act without delay to ensure that every hospital in England is operating with safe staffing levels.

"This is a crisis of this Government's own making. Their failure to face up to it shows that you can't trust David Cameron with the NHS."

Professor Norman Williams, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, believes that the current crisis in accident and emergency may be "forcing some hospitals to drop the ball on elective surgery".

Writing in the Observer, he said that operating theatres are being left idle because there are not enough beds available for post-operative care.

A spokesman for the Department of Health told the paper: "We need to put these figures in the context of the millions of operations performed by our NHS each year. Our NHS is performing well, with more operations carried out last year than ever before, and only 0.9% of all NHS operations being cancelled."

A spokesman for the Health Secretary said: "While in office Labour completely failed to address the growing pressure on A&E. That is why it's good that Labour have finally admitted that the mistakes they made on integration and out of hours services have created a long standing pressure on A&E which is no longer sustainable."

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