Bed shortages leading to idle surgeons, RCS warns

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has raised concern over the number of surgeons in hospitals left with little workload due to cancelled operations because of a lack of available beds.

The news broke via a joint letter from Clare Marx, president of the RCS and Chris Hopson, NHS Providers chief executive, published in the Sunday Times.

The letter outlined: "Because of bed shortages, staff including surgeons are now sometimes left kicking their heels, waiting for beds to become available so they can operate.

"Too often managers, nurses and doctors waste time trying to find somewhere to look after patients [after surgery]. At a time when the NHS is being told to make the most of its resources, this is a shocking waste."

Marx and Hopson highlighted that that overnight inpatient beds were ‘routinely’ over occupied, claiming: “This is partly because there is not enough social care capacity to look after our frail older patients in the community, so increasingly they cannot be discharged from hospital.”

In the letter, both groups have called on NHS England to undertake a review of what measures can be put in place to effectively reduce the pressures on beds experienced this winter.

NHS Providers and the RCS are demanding NHS England undertake a review of what can be done to reduce the pressures on beds experienced this winter.

Hopson said: “The review should consider how effectively the cancellation of routine operations has worked in freeing up capacity for the extra demand we have seen.

“This may have been necessary to cope with short-term pressures, but it has undoubtedly caused delays and distress for patients waiting for operations, and it has disrupted funding for trusts, which are paid to carry out this work, at a time when resources are already very stretched."