Squeeze On Social Care Intensifies Pressure On NHS: Emergency Admissions At Record High

NHS England have released their weekly ‘winter health check’, the last of 2014, further revealing the  pressure that the NHS is currently under.

Emergency admissions in the last week are at their highest number since records began over a decade ago, with 111,062 patients being admitted to A&E. The NHS also experienced very high levels of attendance this week, with 440,428 patients attending A&E – up more than 24,000 on the same week last year.

For the full statistics: http://www.england.nhs.uk/2014/12/19/winter-health-chck-19-12/

Responding to the latest figures Richard Hawkes, Chair of the Care & Support Alliance, said:

“The pressure on our health system is being intensified by the squeeze on council-funded local care.

“Chronic underfunding has left hundreds of thousands of older and disabled people, who need support to do the basics, like getting up or out of the house, cut out of the care system. The impact is now being felt throughout the health and care system, and the health service is forced to pick up the pieces when people become isolated, can’t live on their own and slip into crisis.

“Every day, our organisations hear horror stories of people who struggle to get the support they need. This also has a huge impact on carers, who we know are struggling right now. Chronic underfunding has seen dramatic year-on-year rationing of social care support for older and disabled people and their carers, excluding thousands from the support they desperately need.

“As more and more of us need care, and fewer and fewer of us get it, the Government needs to fund care properly, as well as the health system. As health experts argue, anything else is a false economy.”