Commenting on health secretary Wes Streeting’s suggestion on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that hospitals could be penalised/have extra funding withheld if they are not seen as being productive enough, Dr Tim Cooksley, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said:
“The NHS continues to find itself in an eternal crisis with no light at the end of the tunnel. The pressures throughout the system are exemplified in urgent and emergency care where prolonged waits, degrading corridor care and increasing patient harm are occurring on a daily basis.
“At the heart of this appalling “new normal” is a system where demand continues to exceed capacity. Insufficient investment in workforce and infrastructure continues to be the fundamental problem. No hospital can “play ball” whilst functioning at 100% capacity – there is no resilience in the system to cope with any increased pressure.
“We are hurtling into months of chaos as this winter will be a new terrifying nadir in patient and staff experience. There is consensus that the situation in the NHS has never been so challenging. Funding is only part of the solution but a crucial one; poorly conceived performance metrics and penalties are not.
“Penalising struggling hospitals is simply likely to worsen outcomes for their patients with increasing waiting times and will further demoralise staff who are striving to provide care in an already poor environment.
“Individual hospital performance is also heavily influenced by numerous factors not directly related to its own management. Such penalties are likely to adversely impact poorer and at risk patients.”