Commenting on the NHS elective recovery plan announced officially today by the Prime Minister, Dr Tim Cooksley, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “The aim to reduce elective waiting times and the more innovative aspects of the plan are welcome.
“However, in the middle of a winter of discontent this is hollow and ill-fated due to a failure to address social care and urgent and emergency care.
“This will not impact patients suffering harm, degrading corridor care and indignity in emergency care and it means that, ultimately, outpatient care will be seen as a priority over and above urgent and emergency care. Yet, as we have said many times, there will be no elective recovery without a recovery in urgent and emergency care.
“Clinicians and operational managers in hospitals will continue to face the choice as to whether they continue to “ring-fence” a bed for an elective procedure or move a patient dying in a hospital corridor. This is the stark reality of overcrowded hospitals.
“A coherent, co-ordinated whole-system approach, including social care, that focuses on increasing capacity and workforce is the only solution. It is complex and expensive; but the simple reality.”