UK health system may buckle under winter pressure: Doctors
Doctors in the United Kingdom are extremely worried that hospitals across the country will not be able to cope with the upcoming winter, warning that the health system may buckle under the pressure.
Results of a poll by The Royal College of Physicians published on Monday showed that more than 87 percent of doctors across the UK believed that their hospitals will not be able to deliver proper services to patients over the winter period.
Experts warn temperature will hit freezing lows this winter in Britain, leaving many, especially a sizable population of homeless and rough sleepers, in urgent need of care.
Only a tiny portion, about 17 percent, of a total of 1,761 doctors, specialists, trainees and consultants who responded to the RCP poll, said that they feel “confident” or “very confident” about preparations in the hospitals, according to the Guardian newspaper.
“When we’re concerned that the wheels could fall off at any moment, the pressure goes up and morale goes down,” said RCP president Professor Andre Goddard, adding that the government's plans to pump more money into the NHS, Britain’s main health provider, were simply not enough to cope with the difficult situations expected in the period.
The poll also revealed that hospitals had been lagging behind in planning for the cold. Around 70 percent said their organization had failed to ask them to take part in planning for any contingency.
Britain’s health system has been under immense pressure over the past years as dissatisfaction grows over the quality of services provided to the people by the National Health Service.
The organization has blamed some of the problems on government cuts, which has made it unable to recruit new medical staff. The NHS has also seen many of its professional foreign doctors and nurses quit as fear grows that Britain’s departure from the European Union in March will put their jobs at risk.
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