NHS Winter Crisis: What’s the Truth? - Tonight - ITV News

NHS Winter Crisis: What’s the Truth? - Tonight - ITV News:

"This year's winter crisis, particularly the pressures on Hospital A&E’s, has been widely acknowledged as the worst in living memory. 
People waiting for hours on trolleys in corridors, ambulances queuing up outside hospitals and consultants writing to the Prime Minister saying that some are experiencing patients are prematurely dying.

...Dr Taj Hassan, A&E Consultant and President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, feels that the NHS has reached severe pressure levels.

“I think the NHS and certainly emergency departments are probably in their worst state for well over fifteen years…...What we have seen is the longest waits in accident and emergency departments, we have seen more emergency admissions than ever before.”

– DR TAJ HASSAN, A&E CONSULTANT AND PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE

We hear a distressing story from Nigel Craig, who’s elderly father, 95 years old Robert Craig, fell and waited six and a half hours on a cold bathroom floor, unable to move.

“I was getting really really stressed, I was trying to keep calm, I didn’t want to lose my temper or anything….At this point he was just screaming out.”

– NIGEL...

Patients are being forced to spend long periods waiting in ambulances outside A&E Credit: ITV/Tonight

A key reason for these delays appears to be a shortage of acute beds.

In fact recent research has found that the total number of NHS hospital beds in England has more than halved over the past 30 years - from 300,000 in 1987 to 142,000 in 2017.---*Source: Kings Fund..."

Read on!