Senior NHS doctors call on PM to raise spending

2,000 senior NHS doctors have written to Prime Minister Theresa May to urge her to increase spending on health and social care.

The letter, which has been signed by NHS consultants, associated specialists and GPs, reads: "We have reached unacceptable levels of safety concerns for our patients within the NHS."

“We are constantly failing to meet our own and our patients’ expectations. We apologise to them and we also empathise with them. We feel handcuffed and paralysed working in this current NHS. We are exasperated and feel demoralised because we are not able to provide and develop the excellent care we were trained to give. We are simply fighting fires on a daily basis. There is a real risk of a brain drain at our level from the UK if this government does not listen to us.”

"It is impossible to provide effective, efficient, patient-led innovative healthcare which is free at the point of contact when we spend less on healthcare than other comparable OECD countries."

The letter was organised by emergency consultant Dr Rob Galloway and consultant anaesthetist Anita Sugavanam, from the Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust.

Responding to the letter, a spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We are committed to the NHS - that's why we have invested £10 billion in its own plan to transform services and improve standards of care, and recently announced almost £900 million of extra funding for adult social care over the next two years to tackle the pressures of our ageing population.

"Furthermore, the NHS is now carrying out record numbers of treatments, with more doctors and nurses providing safer, more personal care than ever before."