Is the NHS in crisis?

The chairman of the Leeds Health Scrutiny Board certainly thinks so. In a letter to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Coun Peter Gruen outlines 12 reasons why he thinks the NHS is under unsustainable pressure. Do you agree with his points? Vote in our poll below.

  • Leeds Teaching Hospitals have had to suspend elective surgery due to the ‘winter pressures’
  • Trolleys in hospital corridors are back! There are columns of trolleys with patients waiting, often for hours, to be admitted for treatment, never mind a bed
  • Ambulance crews cannot pass over patients on arrival at hospital due to these shortages; this in turn means they cannot respond to further urgent calls
  • As an emergency measure, hospitals are deploying doctors to specifically look after patients in the trolley queue
  • The Secretary of State seems to want to dilute the four-hour emergency target in A&E, to a huge outcry of protest from all sectors of the community……
  • ….The secret NHS England Sustainablility and Transformation Plans are taking billions of pounds away from the NHS and health departments. So, I let readers judge for themselves whether or not we are in a crisis. I just say this: Wake up and smell the coffee!

For full story see The Yorkshire Post 24 January 2017