Paramedics return to A&E after a 12-hour break to find the same patients still waiting

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A hospital chief has revealed that medical editions at A&E would come out of their shift and return 12 hours later to find the same patients still waiting to be admitted because the NHS was overwhelmed.

One of the injured senior doctors told how his tears curtailed on Wednesday as he “apologized to patients about the standards of care”.

Hospital chiefs are now bracing for more pressure in the coming days from “pent-up” demand for healthcare after nurses and ambulance crews went on strike this week.

The chief of a hospital in the Northwest told Health Service Journal: “A&Es are so busy this week, we’ve had staff go home after their shift… come back 12 hours later, see the same group of patients in the department, and they’re still waiting to be admitted. ..

“I can’t tell you how frustrating that is.”

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Dr Rob Galloway, who works at NHS University Brighton and Sussex, tweeted on Wednesday: “Tonight, I came close to tears while apologizing to patients for the standard of care we can provide.

“In my 22 years as an A&E physician, I’ve never seen things this bad. It’s the same everywhere.

Ambulance strike | December 2022

Ambulance workers climb the picket line outside the headquarters as the ambulance workers strike begins

Getty Images

Ambulances parked outside the West Midlands Ambulance Service headquarters in Coventry, where paramedics, ambulance technicians and call handlers are out in England and Wales, in a strike coordinated by unions GMB, Unison and Unite over pay and conditions that will affect no life threatening calls.

Palestinian Authority

Ambulance workers on the picket line outside Ambulance headquarters in Coventry, where paramedics, ambulance technicians and call handlers are out in England and Wales, in a strike coordinated by unions GMB, Unison and Unite over pay and conditions that will affect non-life-threatening calls.

Palestinian Authority

Soldiers prepare for the ambulance strike at Wellington Barracks

Jeremy Selwyn

Ambulances parked outside the West Midlands Ambulance Service headquarters in Coventry, where paramedics, ambulance technicians and call handlers are out in England and Wales, in a strike coordinated by unions GMB, Unison and Unite over pay and conditions that will affect no life threatening calls.

Palestinian Authority

Soldiers prepare for the ambulance strike at Wellington Barracks

Jeremy Selwyn

Military personnel from the Department of Homes take part in training ambulance drivers at Wellington Barracks in London, as they prepare to provide cover for ambulance workers.

Palestinian Authority

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham (center), joins ambulance workers on the picket line outside Ambulance headquarters in Coventry

PA wire

Military personnel from the Department of Homes take part in training ambulance drivers at Wellington Barracks in London, as they prepare to provide cover for ambulance workers.

Palestinian Authority

Soldiers prepare for the ambulance strike at Wellington Barracks

Jeremy Selwyn

Soldiers prepare for the ambulance strike at Wellington Barracks

Jeremy Selwyn

Ambulance workers on the picket line outside Walton Ambulance Station, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey (Pennsylvania)

PA wire

Soldiers prepare for the ambulance strike at Wellington Barracks

Jeremy Selwyn

“I just hope patients know the fault lies with the politicians, not the NHS staff.”

Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers representing hospital trusts, warned the health service, already under massive pressure from influenza, Covid and Strep A, was in for a “difficult time over the next couple of days”.

She told BBC Breakfast: “After this kind of strike, after something like a bank holiday, in the NHS, we know there’s a lot of pent-up demand.

“So even though, yesterday, with the ambulance service strikes, demand might have gone down, what we’ll see now is demand really up.

“Emergency departments in particular will feel the tension in those areas where strikes have taken place.”

With the threat of further strikes in the NHS, transport and other sectors, young minister Mark Spencer implored striking workers to “get off the picket line and get back to work”.

He told Thames Radio: “As a society we have to try to find a way to get through this together. We have to try to balance the burden of this challenge across the whole of society.

There are a lot of people working in the private sector who are also under tremendous pressure given the impact of the pandemic and Putin’s war.

They also feel pressure and pain. They are also seeing an increase in bills. They can’t afford higher taxes or their own costs going up just like everyone else.”

However, while the average wage increases in the public sector are less than three percent, they are close to seven percent in the private sector.

The government has struggled to explain why public sector workers bear more of the burden to avoid an inflationary spiral.

However, the ministers stressed that large increases in public sector salaries would cost billions which would have to be found from higher taxes, more borrowing, or cuts in services.

Amid claims that next year’s wage review process could be fast-tracked, Spencer said: “I think the answer first and foremost is to get out of the picket line, get back to work.

“The wage review body is an annual process, of course it will happen again as we move into next year, but we need to accept this year and then of course next year the wage review body will take into account the inflation that we have seen over the last 12 months and that You put pressure on everyone, not just those who work in the public sector.”

However, unions criticized Health Secretary Steve Barclay for not agreeing to talks on wages for this year, accusing the government of “recklessly putting lives at risk by refusing to negotiate”.

Polls show that public support for striking NHS employees remains stronger than in other sectors such as railway workers.

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