Improving access to primary care is an essential part of reducing waiting times for A&E, the Liberal Democrats have said today.
Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced a new £1.5 billion plan to invest in hospitals, social care and supporting family care at a press conference this morning in the Chartered Accountants’ Hall, London.
In addition, the party is calling for a new law which ends 12-hour waits to be embedded within the NHS constitution, and a legal duty for the health secretary to deliver this.
They said that to in order to tackle 12-hour waits, ‘sort[ing] out primary care’ to reduce patient numbers in hospital, as well as increasing support from social care and family carers to allow people to leave hospital quicker, is key.
Mr Davey said: ‘I think unless you sort out primary care with GPs and community pharmacists and sort out care, you will never transform the NHS.’
He called the current situation a ‘national crisis’, describing a ‘shocking corridor crisis’ in hospitals.
A report published in the Emergency Medicine Journal (EMJ) by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM)on 9 December highlights the issue of corridor care and the risks impacted on patients.
It showed that, at any single point in time, almost one-fifth of all emergency department (ED) patients were being cared for in escalation areas – such as corridors; and the substantial majority of EDs are using escalation area care.
In order to ‘revive the primary care sector’, Mr Davey acknowledged the need to expand the GP workforce, noting the issue of unemployed GP registrars and medical students who can’t find work.
He said: ‘Expanding the GP workforce remains absolutely critical to reviving the primary care sector.’
However, he also celebrated the work of community pharmacists and expressed that more support was needed for this group.
‘I’m also a big fan, though, of the work of community pharmacists,’ he said.
‘Loads of people, far more people, visit their local community pharmacists.’
He believes community pharmacists are not supported enough, adding that the profession is ‘great value for money, and they will [take] a lot of pressure off GPS and hospitals.’
Mr Davey said the Liberal Democrat plan would make 6,000 extra hospital beds available and could put an end to 12 hour waits by the end of the year. He said it would be funded ‘by scrapping the government’s plan to hand an extra 3 billion pounds a year for pharmaceutical giants’.
Helen Morgan MP, Liberal Democrat health and care spokesperson said: ‘People in this country are being forced to spend whole days and nights in conditions that I can only describe as harrowing with no privacy and no dignity.’
‘Today, I hope that, as has happened so often in the past, Liberal Democrats can shift the dial and help to restore trust in a service that is rightly cherished, that has been so badly broken.’
Reacting to the plan a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘This is not true.
‘This winter ambulances are arriving faster and A&E waits are shorter than last winter, which was an improvement on the winter before that.
‘We have invested an extra £26 billion in our NHS, but it will take time to turn around the mess we inherited.
‘Corridor care is unacceptable. That’s why this government is tackling the situation by delivering 500,000 more vaccinations compared to last year, building new same day emergency centres, mental health crisis centres, and deploying 500 brand new ambulances.
‘In addition, we’ve struck a deal on medicine pricing that puts patients first and strengthens our life sciences sector, all without taking essential funding from our frontline services.’
