Christmas strikes could collapse NHS with flu posing challenge ‘unlike any since pandemic’, says Streeting | NHS
Wes Streeting has warned resident doctors that strikes and a rise in flu cases over the Christmas period could be “the Jenga piece” that forces the NHS to collapse.
The Health Secretary said the NHS was facing an “unprecedented challenge since the pandemic” and urged resident doctors to take up the government’s offer and end their actions.
He said: “The entire NHS team is working around the clock to keep the show on the road. But this is an incredibly precarious situation. The Christmas strikes could be the Jenga piece that brings the tower down. That’s why I’m calling directly on resident doctors to take up the Government’s offer.”
NHS figures released on Thursday show flu cases have reached a record high for this time of year, having jumped 55% in a week to an average of 2,660 patients in hospital every day last week.
Writing in the Times, Streeting said the number of patients in hospital in England could triple by peak and called the scenes at the hospital “inexcusable”.
Dr Chris Streather, regional medical director for NHS England, said that while the impact of flu admissions on hospitals was “pretty bad”, it was “nothing like the scale” of the Covid pandemic.
Asked if talk of the collapse of the NHS was exaggerated, Streather told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The NHS is struggling at the moment. Flu rates are continuing to rise.”
He added: “It’s well within the bounds of what we can deal with. One of the things we’ve learned during the pandemic is that our preparedness to deal with large outbreaks of respiratory viruses has improved. We have increased the number of intensive care or intensive care beds during this period, so we are better prepared. And this is a situation of a different magnitude to the situation we faced in March 2020, you have to prepare for the worst cases.”
Streather said there were 2,500 patients admitted to hospitals in England with flu, an increase of 55% on the previous week and the equivalent of three large hospitals full of flu patients.
“It’s a significant issue,” he said. “This has nothing to do with the magnitude of the pandemic in 2020. And I think we need to use our language to encourage people to adopt the right healthy behaviors, but not to be alarmed at the moment.”
The Health Secretary said the cancellation of planned Christmas strikes by the British Medical Association (BMA) leadership would have “given the NHS certainty this week as it battles the flu epidemic”.
The BMA said it would consult its members by polling them online to find out whether a new deal from the government was enough to call off strikes next week.
Online voting will close on Monday, two days before the start of the five-day strike.
The union said the new offer includes new legislation ensuring local doctors in training will be given priority for specialist training roles, an increase in the number of specialist training roles over the next three years, with 1,000 starting in 2026, and funding for compulsory exams and Royal College membership fees for resident doctors.
