'Patients at risk' in nurses' strike as chaos in NHS gets even worse

FEARS are growing that nurses strikes will add to NHS chaos and put patients at risk at a time when the service is reporting the worst performance on record.

- Hanna Geissler

Almost 44,000 people were kept waiting for over 12 hours in England’s A&E departments last month – the worst it has been.

Some 150,000 were in line for more than four hours. The proportion seen within that period fell below 70 per cent for the first time, against a 95 per cent target.

Meanwhile, the mammoth backlog of planned operations and procedures swelled to a new peak of 7.1 million by the end of September. The total included more than 400,000 patients who had been waiting over a year – up from 387,000 a month earlier.

Dr Tim Cooksley, President of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “Standards are at an unacceptably poor level for both patients and staff with an expectation that this will deteriorate further over the winter months.

“Morale for patients and staff is low. All parts of the NHS are struggling.”

The latest data came the day after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) revealed nurses had voted to strike over pay at around half of NHS organisations balloted across the UK.

Walk-outs that will see staff provide only a Christmas Day level of urgent care are set to begin before the end of the year and could drag on for six months.

Patricia Marquis, RCN director for England, said the record waits and delays were “why nursing has taken the historic decision to strike”.