Newcastle Hospitals boss says pressures cannot be underplayed

Dame Jackie Daniel says Newcastle hospitals are facing "a perfect storm" ahead winter pressures

The head of Newcastle Hospitals Trust says current pressures on the NHS cannot be "underplayed" or left to continue in the long-term.

Dame Jackie Daniel said staff were feeling "really pressured" ahead of the winter months.

She said there were unprecedented numbers of people attending A&E, staff shortages and growing waiting lists.

She said it felt "like the perfect storm and I don't think we can underplay that".

"I think the current pressures are unsustainable but the reality is the NHS does brilliantly at what we're doing now in continuing to respond but it can't go on long-term," Dame Jackie said.

Hospitals like Newcastle say demand for services is increasing across the NHS.

Newcastle Hospitals' chief executive said the "current pressures are unsustainable"

The situation has been called "unprecedented" with waiting lists the highest Dame Jackie said she had ever seen.

"We've got over 5,000 people now waiting over 52 weeks and if you compare that to pre-Covid we had around 18 patients waiting 52 weeks, so you can see the scale of the problem and it's a significant backlog," she said.

Lewis Gibson, patient flow matron at Newcastle RVI, said it felt like "we're stuck in a perpetual winter crisis and that's ran right through from the end of summer to August".

"So yesterday it was the most I've ever seen in ED [the emergency department] waiting admission and it's a recurring crisis."

Newcastle's hospitals have also seen a rise in the number of frail and elderly patients needing care and also an increase in people coming to hospital with mental health problems and addiction issues with alcohol.

Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) has seen record numbers attending accident and emergency and last month patients were facing a nine-hour wait.

'Very busy time'

Dr Chris Gibbons, clinical director of medicine at Newcastle Hospitals Trust, said: "Probably since June or July the number of people coming into the emergency department doors are higher than we've ever recorded, particularly in September and October.

"I think we've had 25% higher attendance than in autumn 2019 which was already a very busy time for us."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it was "doing all we can to support our dedicated NHS staff and healthcare services".

They added: "We're investing £5.4bn over this winter including £478m to help get patients out of hospital. The NHS has given ambulance trusts an extra £55m to boost staff numbers in control rooms and on the frontline."