Thousands of operations and procedures in England’s National Health Service may be postponed until January 31 because of the influx of emergency cases.
Authorities have told hospitals to defer routine outpatient appointments and focus on emergencies, the BBC reports. NHS England’s acute care director, Professor Keith Willett, said that inundated hospitals are being given the “time and space” to address winter pressures.
Cancer operations and procedures that are time-critical will continue as usual, officials emphasized.
NHS England’s National Emergency Pressures Panel met on Tuesday and announced an extension of the deadline for the delay of all non-urgent patient care, such as hip or knee replacements, to January 31, in order to free up resources and capacities for the sickest patients.
Willett said that the delay in non-urgent operations is not a crisis, but that NHS England is responding to concerns from doctors and nurses over a surge in flu cases caused by the cold weather. He said,
With the incidents of flu rising in the community and in our hospitals, and the pressures that we always see in the first few weeks of January… that it’s important we give the hospitals time and space to manage the demand that we anticipate will come through.
Milton Keynes University Hospital, for example, said it was undergoing extree pressure due to “very high numbers of patients seeking emergency medical care.” The hospital has opened an “unprecedented number of escalation [extra] beds” to accommodate sick patients, and warned patients that the emergency department would be treating according to clinical priority.
While the NHS faces increased pressure in the New Year, the service seems to be under even more strain now compared to previous years. NHS England has even given the green light for hospitals to put patients in mixed sex wards if they must.
The service has noted a higher number of flu cases this year and can only hope that its own warnings about an outbreak don’t come true.
