Credible plan needed to tackle patient backlog

The BMA has said that the government must urgently outline a credible plan for addressing the huge backlog of patients awaiting NHS treatment in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The doctors’ union is calling on the government to be honest about the scale of the task ahead, and to bring together health leaders and staff groups to ensure frontline clinicians are leading discussions on how to prioritise the sickest patients left without treatment due to the redeployment of staff and resources to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

The latest tracker survey from the BMA of more than 8,000 doctors found that 52 per cent said they were either not very confident or not confident at all in their own department being able to manage patient demand as NHS services are resumed. This rise in demand is already being felt on the ground with over 40 per cent saying it had increased significantly in the past week, with more than one in 10 saying it had already exceeded pre-March levels.

Worryingly, more than a quarter of doctors said there had been no engagement with them over how to manage the increase in demand in their place of work or local area.

The BMA believes that the priorities for the government in addressing the NHS backlog must concentrate on four areas: transparency; capacity; workforce; and learning.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said: “The NHS entered this crisis severely on the back foot. We had record waits for A&E and cancer care, occupancy levels were dangerously high and we were perilously short of staff. While healthcare workers rallied around heroically to tackle the pandemic on the frontline, it was a wake-up call to just how under-resourced and underprepared we were. Resources were diverted to Covid-19 efforts at the expense of other care and patients.

“Doctors are rightly worried. The care they are able to offer non-Covid patients has worsened because of prioritising those with the virus, and they have little confidence that they can manage the surge in demand to come. The government must be honest with the public about the surge to come and start meaningful conversations with frontline clinicians about how we can, together, begin to tackle the backlog. This will require transparency around capacity and the workforce crisis, and the need to invest in infrastructure that can meet the healthcare needs of patients.

“And while the last few months have been horrific in many ways, we must learn from them. Doctors have embraced new ways of working, including further use of video technology and remote working. A reduction in paperwork, bureaucracy and unnecessary regulation has liberated doctors and allowed them to dedicate their time to seeing patients. We must retain these positive improvements, which of course require systematic changes like guaranteed access to up-to-date IT software and hardware – the lack of which has frustrated healthcare workers for too long. Covid-19 has brought with it the worst health crisis in a century. The NHS must not return to its previous perilous state.”