Recently appointed health secretary, Steve Barclay, has warned that NHS England is set to face “very serious challenges” in the upcoming colder months and the “urgency” to prepare cannot wait until a new prime minister is appointed.
With the looming threat of typical winter illnesses such as flu and a further wave of Covid, Barclay told the Telegraph that he was preparing for “reasonable worst-case scenarios” and warned that there should be no delays to key decisions such as bringing in more healthcare staff from abroad.
He said: “Obviously those (autumn and winter) pressures can come in different forms. It might be you get a bad flu; it may be Covid rates are higher than we would expect or like.
“There's an urgency to prepare, particularly in areas where there's a long lead time. The decisions need to happen now, not wait until the autumn by which time those lead times would put the resolution at too late a stage.”
Boris Johnson’s successor as Conservative leader and next prime minister of the United Kingdom will not be announced until September 5. Meanwhile, several major policy decisions have been put on ice.
However, a recent report compiled by MPs indicated that NHS vacancies currently stand at some 105,000, a significant staffing shortfall which threatens to adversely affect patient safety.
With autumn and winter pressures therefore carrying the potential to overburden the NHS, Barclay has rung the alarm bells that planning for the autumn and winter cannot wait if an emergency situation is to be avoided
Barclay added that he had already begun to “accelerate contingency plans” ahead of September, having asked civil servants within the Department of Health and Social Care to “work at pace” on proposals to bring in more overseas healthcare staff.
Barclay believes that bringing more overseas staff into nursing homes could help alleviate pressure on the NHS by preventing mass bed blocking.
He said that the shortage of beds and staff within the NHS led to “ambulances being delayed on handover…that manifests itself with unmet need in the community.”
Photo by UK Government on Wikimedia Commons
