Back to near-normal service by autumn ‘unlikely’

The British Medical Association has revealed that the majority of doctors think ambitions to get the NHS back to near-normal service by autumn are unlikely to be realised.

NHS England recently set targets to resume normal levels of activity over the next few months, but when asked by the BMA whether they thought these would be met, 70 per cent of the more than 3,000 doctors who responded to a survey said this was either highly (40 per cent) or fairly (30 per cent) unlikely.

The scale of the backlog built up during the pandemic has been laid bare, with a third of doctors saying they thought it would take more than a year to clear waiting lists for elective procedures.

The BMA’s latest tracker survey of doctors in England and Wales also found that 60 per cent of doctors said they were not very or not at all confident in their local health economy managing demand as normal NHS services resume, while half said they were not very or not at all confident in being able to manage a second wave of coronavirus.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said: “These survey findings underline the sheer scale of the challenge for the NHS in the coming months, and the anxiety and concern felt by already exhausted frontline doctors as they look ahead to what will likely be one of the most challenging times of their careers.

“Although staff are being told that the NHS will begin to return to ‘business as usual’ they have little confidence that it will be able to cope with the backlog of millions of patients left untreated during the first spike of the pandemic. Doctors are worried for their patients and the risk of their condition deteriorating as a result of further delays, given that more than 50,000 patients are already waiting longer than 12 months for treatment – 46-fold the number from a year ago – and 45 per cent of doctors told us they are seeing patients presenting later than before with their symptoms.

“At the same time, doctors are really fearful of how the NHS will cope if a second wave of Covid-19 hits, which could be devastating for the health service if it arrives in winter and amid a potential flu outbreak. We must do all we can to avoid another peak now, focusing on prevention, and maintaining clear, consistent public health measures and messaging.”