A&E crisis fears as NHS leaders ‘too busy with strikes to prepare for winter’

Exclusive: NHS services ‘need to be preparing for winter... instead they’re preparing for strikes’

The NHS is risking an A&E and ambulance crisis because health leaders are too busy with strikes to prepare for winter, it was warned today.

Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS providers, which represents healthcare trusts, predicted the NHS would face an “incredibly difficult” few months this winter as she called for an urgent resolution to the industrial action.

Frontline services should be gearing up for the traditionally difficult winter season, she said, when cold weather brings a rise in cases of illnesses like flu and vomiting bugs.

But the NHS risks very long waits in ambulances and A&E departments – “potentially” as bad as last year – unless health leaders are given a chance to prepare, she said.

“With a very tired workforce, beset by the challenges of industrial action, I think it’s going to be incredibly difficult this winter,” she told The Independent.

“Because what frontline NHS services need to be doing right now is preparing for winter. What they’re doing instead is preparing for strikes.”

Ms Cordery said senior managers in NHS Trusts are being forced to spend “probably at least a third, if not more, of the time that people should be spent doing their day jobs” dealing with strikes and their aftermath, including cancelling and rebooking operations and reviewing how to keep patients safe.

“The new day job, the new ‘business as usual’, is preparing for strikes and managing strikes. And then sweeping up after the strikes,” she warned.

Asked what the consequences of trusts not getting a chance to prepare for winter are, she said: “The consequences of that are that we have very long waiting times in A&E and we have very poor handover times between ambulances and A&E departments.”

Junior doctors hold rally outside Downing Street at the start of their latest strike (PA)

Asked if those could be of the kind we saw last winter, she said: “Potentially. We don’t have the same set of conditions in place but the results are usually the same. Pressures manifest themselves in the same way.”

During a catastrophic three months last winter, the problems in the NHS dominated the headlines alongside pictures of queues of ambulances stuck for hours outside hospitals unable to discharge patients.

More than 500 excess deaths a week were estimated to be linked to long waiting times in January, with a record number of patients spending more than 12 hours in A&E, as revealed by The Independent.

Almost 6,000 patients were estimated to have suffered severe harm in December 2022, according to the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, as ambulances were stuck for hours outside hospitals unable to hand over patients.

Senior health bosses have warned the ongoing doctor strikes over pay have cost the NHS about £1bn in missed appointments and cover payments.

Ms Cordery called for the strikes to be resolved “as soon as possible and ideally before winter”.

The NHS faces new two-day strike action from consultant doctors on 24 August, just two weeks after a five-day junior doctor strike, which ends tomorrow morning.

Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors committee, said it was now three months since the government was last willing to talk to junior doctors about their pay.

“Instead of acting responsibly and coming to the table, the government has wasted time by first saying nothing and then having the prime minister declare an end to talks without first having stepped into the room with doctors,“ said the BMA union leader.

He added: “[Mr Sunak] then adds insult to injury by blaming those same doctors for rising waiting lists. Sooner or later the government will accept that they need to work with doctors rather than against them. We are here to talk when they do.”

Last month Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told The Independent that thousands more patients could die needlessly this winter amid failure by NHS leaders to adequately plan for winter.

He said: “Our experience last year during winter was so difficult that we are anxious that we do not have the same problems.

“We remain concerned that the NHS is not sufficiently prepared for the coming winter; there needs to be an increase in the number of staffed beds and a reform of the way acute hospitals and social care work together so that people who have completed their medical care can be discharged safely.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Patients are bearing the brunt of the impact of continuous strikes across the NHS, and further action by the BMA will cause more appointments and procedures to be postponed as well as vital planning ahead of winter.”

He added that ministers were working closely with the NHS and social care to prepare for next winter.