Surgeon breaks cover over NHS beds crisis
31/07/2007

Interviewed by the ‘Independent on 29th July, www.independent.co.uk, Mr Martin Bircher, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at St. George’s Hospital, London highlighted the unacceptable delay for the treatment of complex trauma cases due to the lack of availability of beds in a specialist trauma unit (of which there are only 11 in the UK), and by bureaucracy and layers of managers in hospital Trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs), whose major concern is the budget rather than patient care. Lack of intensive care beds has compounded the problem.

“If we consider ourselves a leading nation, we should have a first-class emergency healthcare system. We do not, and the situation is worsening”, says Mr Bircher.

The case of a 21 year old female student from London, Lucy Lynn-Evans with multiple pelvic and lower limb fractures following a RTA, who was initially stabilised at Redhill Hospital, but was informed she may have to wait up to three weeks for a bed at a specialist centre for definitive surgery, illustrated the crisis.

In order to tackle this situation, Mr Bircher has proposed that emergency medicine should be funded centrally, while Mr Dermot O’Riordan, Council Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and responsible for the Delivery of Surgical Services Committee, believes that commissioning of very specialist services needs to be co-ordinated at a higher level than a PCT, either by the strategic health authority or even nationally.

A leading article in the same paper believes the NHS has been hampered by too much poor-quality bureaucracy. Good management should ensure that the setting of health service priorities are more transparent and the right ones. Bed shortages have resulted from short-sighted decisions looking for short-term savings, but that the right incentives to treat more patients would create more capacity such as the principle of money following the patient.