The Problem of Waiting in Ambulances

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In august, 208 thousand patients were delayed being handed over to any staff by 15 minutes. Forty two thousand of those waited for at least an hour or more once the patients were finally in ane. In some hospitals, patients have been delayed discharge, stuck there despite being medically fit to go, for as long as nine months. At the moment, ruffly one and seven beds in england is filled with someone who should be elsewhere.

The UK’s new health secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has not taken on an easy job. Almost two-thirds of trainee GPs plan to work part-time just a year after they qualify, reporting that the job has become too intense to safely work more. A record 6.8 million people are waiting for hospital treatment in England, and 132,139 posts lie vacant across the NHS in England. Ian Sample hears from acute medicine consultant Dr Tim Cooksley about what’s happening within the NHS, and speaks to the Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, about how the UK’s health and social care systems ended up in crisis and whether they can be fixed. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod