The Royal College of Physicians strongly urged the Prime Minister Theresa May to invest in the NHS as more than 20 hospitals in England are on black alert after getting overcrowded due to the cold weather.
The RCP wrote to the Prime Minister and stated that the hospitals are too full but with too few qualified medical personnel to take care of them, as per The Independent. The RCP, along with several other bodies such as the British Red Cross, have warned the public of the severe pressure faced by the health system and there is a real possibility for it to collapse under the ongoing crisis.
Hospitals have been forced to take actions to manage the demand which compromises the quality of care for patients, according to The Guardian. They can no longer provide full services, such as cancelling surgery for cancer patients, closing the birthing center, treating adults in the children's ward and running out of bed for their patients. In some hospitals, such as the university hospitals of Leicester NHS, patients even had to wait in ambulances due to overcrowding.
The British Red Cross has called it a humanitarian crisis. However, Prime Minister May and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt rejected the claims of Red Cross. The secretary accused patients of going to the A&E even for non-emergency procedures, despite having taken his children to the A&E in 2014 because he could not wait for a doctor. He suggested that the hospitals should only treat A&E patients within four hours for those who really need the service.
RCP Registrar Andrew Goddard stated that patients are going to the A&E because they have nowhere else to go, which shows how strained health services have become. The NHS should be funded to alleviate the pressure from hospitals and prevent more lives at risk, as the current NHS is not affordable in the long term. The RCP's letter intended to highlight the problem in NHS and social care, which was not declared in the Autumn Statement.
Shadow Health Minister Jon Ashworth supported the RCP and called on the Prime Minister for a plan to properly fund the social care system and the NHS.
Watch more about the NHS crisis here:
