Commenting on government proposals to move millions of pounds assigned to help manage the Covid backlog into social care, Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said:
“It is important there is recognition of the dreadful state of affairs in the system caused by patients not being able to leave hospital when medically fit to create a free bed for the next patient.
“The dilemma here is that such long-term erosion of the foundations of health and social care provision means that by taking from one issue to try to solve another, the voids will still exist.
“There has been a lack of action over a sustained period on key areas such as social care, recruitment and bed capacity and this combination has led us to the crisis we are experiencing.
“Workforce constraints will remain the largest barrier to the success of both short and long-term strategies to stabilise the NHS and, therefore, any plans must address this fundamental problem.”