Emergency health services in UK 'at breaking point'

Despite the fact that Britain may top the list in the excellence of its medical facilities, yet there are warnings that accident and emergency units here are "at the breaking point". In a recent statement the main opposition Labour leaders Ed Miliband said AE in hospitals were in crisis, with the number of people waiting for four hours to be seen by doctors rising from 340,000 in 2009-2010 to 888,000 last year. Miliband said the reason the government was failing to meet its AE targets "month after months" is because the government decided to take 3 billion pounds away from the budget, of the state-funded, the National Health Service (NHS). For their part, doctors admitted that the emergency care system has come under intense pressure, partly due to a rise in the number of people attending AE. Figures released by the Department of Health here showed that one million more people attended emergency departments this year compared to three years ago. A new survey by the NHS Confederation found that the majority of those questioned believe that the strain on the service is down to the rising number of frail older people with multiple long term problems followed by the difficulty in discharging or transferring patients into appropriate further care. Meanwhile, there are fears that the emergency health services will not be able to cope during the coming winter, doctors said. The survey noted that some 1,260 vacancies exist at the 101 of England's 166 major hospitals. In addition, a new research showed that London hospitals were particularly short of staff, with four hospitals in the British capital topping the list of areas with the most severe lists of unfilled positions. For that reason the Department of Health said it was preparing to announce this week that 500 million pounds of extra funding for the nation's AE departments will be allocated. Ministers are expected to assign the money to the hospitals under the greatest strain following the worst summer for AE departments in a decade, according to the media here. Some cynical observers advise overseas visitors to the UK not to fall ill suddenly while here as they may have to wait for long hours in emergency medical departments before being seen by a doctor. Another main reasons for the long delay is that almost all private hospitals do not have A E services. The low staffing level of nurses at the emergency health units is another factor leading to the crisis, according to the Royal College of nursing here. Furthermore, Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine has been more outspoken by saying that staffing levels in emergency departments represented a "crisis". "The impact for patient care is that there are fewer doctors to see them, which means that most patients may have to wait longer than we would ideally wish them to wait, in order to be seen," he said. Mann told Sky news TV network that visa restrictions on foreign doctors from outside the EU could help tackle the staffing shortage. "There is a shortage of doctors and nurses, particularly in AE," he emphasised. In the meantime, health experts said it is clear that one way of filling the gap is to recruit doctors and nurses from overseas.