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The NHS in England will take “months” to return to normal service after the Covid crisis finally ends, because its workforce is “exhausted and traumatized,” according to a trusted head of a hospital, who says many employees may resign. completely.
Hundreds of staff members are denied the opportunity to decompress after working hard and seeing large numbers of patients die during the brutal second wave, and “a large number” will go on long-term sick leave as a result. or he will quit his jobs, said Chris Hopson, executive director of NHS Providers.
Parliamentarians or patients should not wait or pressure the NHS to immediately resume rapid diagnostic and treatment services because that “is not possible,” he told The Guardian. Canceled surgeries, thousands of which have been repeatedly postponed since March 2020 for ailments like cancer, will also take time to return to normal.
Almost 4.5 million people in England are awaiting hospital care, the highest number on record, and should theoretically receive treatment within 18 weeks. But the widespread disruption to non-Covid care caused by the pandemic means that wait times have plummeted and the number of people forced to wait more than a year for sometimes urgent care has skyrocketed from 1,398 to 192,169 in just one year.
“There is potentially great tension between giving staff who are completely depleted the space and the support they need to recover, and at the same time, the NHS recovers the delays in care that have accumulated, particularly in the hospital sector,” he said. Hopson, whose organization represents England’s 240 NHS trusts.
“That [hospital] What CEOs worry about is that the focus will be solely on service delivery, on “quick, quick, quick, catch up on all this.” Of course that is very, very important. How do we balance that with the need to give our staff space to recover and decompress? That is a really complicated and difficult subject. These could be potentially conflicting demands for many people. [in the NHS]”.
Ministers must explain to the public that hospitals won’t be able to cope with the huge backlog of canceled care until front-line staff have taken a break, Hopson said. Many of them will need long periods away from their jobs to recover physically and mentally once the current Covid-19 spike has passed, likely in about a month, he added.
“We cannot expect the NHS to continue with the intensity at which we have been working. We have left the tank completely dry and we need to give people a chance to recover. “His views reflect the belief among hospital bosses that if staff are not given adequate time off, some may” break. “
Hopson urged politicians to come up with “a clear set of expectations about what the public can expect in the coming months as we go through this period to allow our staff to recover from what we ask of them and expect them to do. It’s amazing how many NHS staff on television have recently said things like ‘I feel broken’ or ‘I feel exhausted.’
A delay before the NHS returns to normal is “a difficult concept, because some people might say, ‘Oh look, why aren’t these people doing what they should be doing?’ It is simply not possible to keep asking staff to do so for several more weeks and months. That would be unreasonable. “
NHS trusts
There are 216 in England, providing acute, specialty, ambulance, community and mental health care. Each of them is responsible for providing care and treatment to patients, within specified waiting times, respecting their budgets and hiring staff. The trusts have worked together like never before during the pandemic, for example accepting critically ill Covid patients from nearby areas.
NHS England
A quasi-independent body from the Department of Health and Welfare that oversees the operation of the NHS in England, distributes its budget and sets its priorities. Its chief executive, Sir Simon Stevens, has known Boris Johnson since they were together at Oxford University in the 1980s. He regularly gives testimony to parliamentary committees and has appeared at various # 10 Covid briefings.
NHS providers
Representing the NHS trusts of England. Its CEO, Chris Hopson, a regular interviewee in the media, has a long history of highlighting issues that concern hospital heads, for example, inadequate supply of personal protective equipment for NHS staff. Last spring, the disaster of the government test and Track program and demand for tighter restrictions on personal liberties to reduce coronavirus infections. Canny and a very effective communicator, is also well connected in Whitehall and the ministers and Stevens take him seriously as he is the public face of the people who run the NHS hospitals.
NHS Confederation
It plays a similar role to that of NHS providers, with two differences. He represents the NHS bodies in Wales and England, and also represents England’s 1,260 primary care networks, local GP surgery groupings, thus speaking on behalf of GPs who refer patients for care , not just the trusts that provide it. The confederation’s link to family physicians means that it has been much more involved in the ongoing rollout of Covid vaccines than the NHS providers.
British Medical Association
It is the main union representing around 70% of the 240,000 doctors in the UK. As such, ministers must heed their views, especially as they negotiate doctors’ pay. But it is also a professional body that produces guidance to improve care both in specific conditions and in health in general. Its chairman of the council (leader), Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a GP from London, is probably the highest profile doctor in the country and offers his views on the latest developments related to the pandemic on a daily basis.
Association of Hospital Consultants and Specialists
A smaller medical union than the BMA, created a few years ago. Its president, Dr. Claudia Paoloni, an anesthetist, is also often quoted in the media.
UK Physicians Association
A network of grassroots doctor campaigns across the UK that was formed just a few years ago. It uses knowledge and testimonials from front-line doctors to expose what it considers flaws in government or NHS policy, such as harassment or difficulties in obtaining a visa to work for the NHS. His main public face is Dr. Samantha Batt-Rawden, an intensive care physician. She is an articulate and accomplished media performer and uses Twitter regularly to highlight issues.
Everydoctor
Similar in composition and purpose to DAUK, highlighting the experiences of front-line physicians. Its founder, Dr. Julia Patterson, who trained as a psychiatrist, has recently become its CEO as part of her plans to become more professional and less ad-hoc in an attempt to expand her role, reach, and influence. This week he is holding the first of what he claims to be regular press conferences.
Nigel Edwards, executive director of the Nuffield Trust health think-tank, said ministers and the public would have to accept that longer wait times for the months ahead are inevitable. The illness of NHS staff, gaps in the workforce and the need to recover from the pandemic mean that “there will be compensation, and the government will have to be frank about how slowly health services will realistically recover and turn, what the public can reasonably expect from their NHS ”.
A survey of 7,000 UK doctors conducted in December by the British Medical Association found that as a result of the intense pressures to work during Covid, 28% are more likely to retire early, 21% are more likely to leaving the NHS for another career and 47% are more likely to work fewer hours.
Professor Neil Mortensen, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, backed Hopson’s request that MPs be patient with the reopening of NHS services while their workforce recovers. “It doesn’t make sense for politicians to talk about operating 24/7 when many anesthetists, operating room personnel and surgeons will need time to recover,” he said.
He said England’s NHS took until the fall to resume performing 60-80% of their usual number of surgeries after the first Covid spike in the spring, but added that long waits for care should be avoided because they can cause make patients depressed or physically worsen.
NHS England did not respond directly to Hopson’s comments. An NHS spokesperson said only that: “The pressures on NHS staff throughout the pandemic have been intense and unrelenting, and the well-being of our workforce is critical to continued patient care.
“During the first wave of the pandemic, more than 400,000 NHS workers accessed the NHS staff health and wellness program, and clearly this support must continue and expand.”
