Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

Britain launches plan to ease doctor waiting lists

Published 21/09/2022, 22:36
Updated 23/09/2022, 02:01
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A person walks past an image of a National Health Service (NHS) worker displayed on hoardings outside a temporary field hospital at St George's Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in London, Britain, January 8, 2022. REU

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A person walks past an image of a National Health Service (NHS) worker displayed on hoardings outside a temporary field hospital at St George's Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in London, Britain, January 8, 2022. REU

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's health minister on Thursday pledged to cut waiting times for doctors' appointments and launched a fund to support social care, in a plan that drew criticism for not doing enough to solve a staffing crisis in the National Health Service (NHS).

Britain's state-funded NHS, which has provided healthcare free at the point of use since 1948, has seen the COVID-19 pandemic increase demand from patients and create backlogs for elective care while facing its worst ever staffing crisis with thousands of vacancies.

Record numbers have been waiting to start routine treatment, ambulance response times have ballooned while face-to-face appointments with general practitioner (GP) doctors are hard to come by as staffing problems hinder the health service.

"We expect backlogs to rise before they fall as more patients come forward for diagnosis and treatment after the pandemic," Health Secretary Therese Coffey told lawmakers.

In her first major statement in the role, Coffey said that she would make changes to take the burden off GPs, by providing more services through pharmacies and changing staffing rules, with the aim that anyone who needs to see a GP should be able to within two weeks.

Coffey said her A, B, C and D of priorities were ambulances, backlogs, care and doctors and dentists.

She said that improving how quickly patients were discharged could help free up beds in hospitals and reduce ambulance delays, and launched a 500 million pound ($564 million) fund to help get people out of hospital and into adult social care.

She also said that the million volunteers who stepped forward during the pandemic should do so again, but lawmakers were sceptical of the plan.

Conservative Jeremy Hunt, a former health minister, said "it's not more targets the NHS needs, it's more doctors," and the opposition Labour Party also said the staffing crisis needed to be solved.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A stethoscope belonging to Sheeba Philip, 44, a Stroke Nurse Consultant at East Lancashire NHS Trust is seen in the pocket of her uniform as she poses for a portrait ahead of International Women's Day at The Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital in north west England, Britain, March 3, 2021. Picture taken March 3, 2021. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

"There is still no plan that comes close to meeting the scale of the challenge," Labour health spokesman Wes Streeting said.

($1 = 0.8860 pounds)

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.