Emergency department delays leading to deaths, surgeon says

Delays in getting patients into emergency departments from ambulances is leading to a loss of life, a surgeon has said.

There were 640 people in emergency departments across Northern Ireland on Saturday morning, with more than 200 of those waiting for over 12 hours.

There were 284 waiting on a decisions to admit.

In addition, hospitals were not able to send 532 patients home despite them being medically fit for discharge at 10am on Saturday.

Professor Mark Taylor, Northern Ireland Confederation for Health and Social Care (NICON) spokesman, outlined the figures on BBC’s Sunday Politics Northern Ireland.

Prof Taylor, a consultant surgeon, said delays in admitting people into emergency departments was resulting in a loss of life.

Similar concerns have been raised by the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service

Prof Taylor said the recent winter flu spike has brought a “perfect storm” on top of year-round “immense pressure” on the health service”.

“When you have a system that is under so much pressure you cannot get ambulances decanting those very vulnerable patients into the emergency department, those ambulances are trapped at the emergency department.

“Therefore, when a call comes through with trauma, acute heart attack or acute stroke, there are delays and those delays have consequences.”

Prof Taylor said Northern Ireland was dealing with the worst waiting lists in the UK, adding that the workforce was “demoralised”.

Pat Cullen, Sinn Fein MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, said the health system is “in crisis”.

Ms Cullen, who was the chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing prior to running for election, raised concerns for patients as well as healthcare workers.

On the same programme, she said Northern Ireland trusts had been given funding to pilot schemes for best practices in care.

However, she said recurring funding was not provided for these schemes and “inevitably” they come to an end before being rolled out across the system.

She added: “We know that we need to do more in social care but all of that costs money.

“And we’ve had 14 years of us having austerity in the north, the Tory Government starved this place of funding.

“And while we see that the Finance Minister (Sinn Fein’s Caoimhe Archibald) has put 50% of the block grant towards health, the block grant overall is not fit for purpose.”

Pressed on whether Health Minister and UUP leader Mike Nesbitt could deliver required health and social care services with that funding, Ms Cullen said: “Well, he can do what he can do with the money and that’s the bottom line.

“We are saying very loud and clear that overall the money overall is insufficient within the North.”