The NHS will experience “pockets of meltdown” this winter as the service comes under increasing pressure, a leading doctor has warned.
Dr Mark Holland, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the resilience of medical units was being “put to the test like never before”.
It comes a day after the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said the government would fail to achieve its aim of a seven-day NHS without more cash.
Writing in the Observer, he warned that hospitals are cutting services and the NHS risked “slowly deteriorating” as it did in the 1990s.
Holland echoed the warnings about a service under pressure, saying those parts of the NHS where performance was already weak would find the winter months particularly difficult.
He also pointed to the “national emergency” of medically fit patients not being discharged home from hospital. This is partly due to inadequate social care in the community.
Full story in The Guardian 12 September 2016