Urgent care in England performing 'far worse' than pre-pandemic, think tank says
Summary
A health think tank found that emergency health care in England is worse now than it was before the pandemic. The group thinks that the problems can't just be blamed on the flu. They believe the government needs to do something about it.Key Facts
- The Health Foundation, a group that thinks about health issues, says emergency care in England isn't doing as well as before COVID-19.
- This winter, the waiting times at emergency rooms reached the highest ever recorded.
- The think tank doesn't think it's right to say the problems are just because of the flu being more common.
- In January, over 60,000 people waited for more than 12 hours in the emergency room before being admitted to a hospital ward.
- There were more issues with moving patients out of the hospital who were ready to leave, causing things to slow down even more in emergency rooms and for ambulances.
- Hospital patients with the stomach flu (called norovirus) were more than in many previous winters.
- The number of people who went into the major emergency rooms and overall emergency hospital admissions went down a little compared to the previous winter.
- The government is planning to put out some new plans for how to deal with urgent and emergency care.
- The Health Foundation thinks the government needs to be ready for winters like this one, and not blame bugs. They say the real problem is how the health service works.
- A target to increase the number of hospitals allowing patients to view appointments through a health app has been surpassed. This helped reduce missed appointments and saved money.
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