Health officials are urging Britons to use pharmacies more for minor ailments to relieve pressure on GPs, who have seen a huge rise in demand for their services. Photograph: Sean Justice/Corbis
Accident and emergency services are facing unsustainable pressure and Britons should copy their European cousins and visit pharmacists instead, health officials have said.
Health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, warned the NHS is facing unprecedented demand as it copes with an ageing population and a surge in visits during the winter.
Hunt announced a £300m boost to pay for more staff and extra bed space to cope with the expected spike in patients over the coming months.
But he warned it is not sustainable for A&E to continue to bear the brunt of this extra demand.
He said: “Winter has always been particularly challenging for the NHS. We have been thinking about it particularly hard this year because of the growing pressure on A&E departments.
“Emergency admissions are growing about 3-4% year in, year out. We are very aware that over this winter there is going to be some real pressure there. The pressures are higher than they have ever been before in the system.”
He added: “It is worth also asking the question, is this going to go on like this? Are we going to have to continue having to put more and more sums into the NHS to withstand these pressures?
“It is not sustainable in the long run to say that all the extra pressure in the NHS has to be borne by A&E departments.”
Hospitals have had to cope with an extra 1m visits to A&E every year compared with 2010, and 2,000 extra ambulance journeys a day, Hunt said.
Many hospitals are struggling to find enough beds as admissions have also shot up. Last week 104,100 patients were admitted to hospital, against 98,700 in the same week last year.
Hunt said today’s announcement of £300m comes after an injection of £400m earlier this year.
Of this, £25m will go towards widening access to GPs and £50m will be ploughed into ambulance services. It will also pay for the equivalent of 1,000 extra doctors, 2,000 extra nurses and up to 2,500 extra beds.
But Britain must “break the cycle of continually having to do more to help A&E departments withstand that pressure” by encouraging patients to use other health services, Hunt said.
Health officials said they want the NHS to shift to a “seven-day cross-system” model. This would include better hospital staffing at weekends so beds are cleared more quickly, and support for the frail and elderly to get treatment in their homes rather than enter hospital.
They also announced a major push to get Britons using their pharmacists more.
NHS England managing director, Sir Bruce Keogh, said: “In other parts of Europe pharmacies are very well used. Our GPs, frankly, during the winter feel really under strain with people coming in with coughs and colds. A lot of that strain could be relieved if people use pharmacies more.”
Officials are also urging more NHS staff to get the flu jab, warning those carrying the virus but not displaying symptoms risk unknowingly transmitting the illness to patients.
Shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, said: “We’ve been telling David Cameron for more than two years to get a grip on the crisis he created in A&E. Throwing money at it when winter’s about to start is not good enough.
“This won’t make up for the fact that £3bn was wasted on a top-down reorganisation while patient care deteriorated. Labour will rescue the NHS with an extra £2.5bn a year to fund 20,000 more nurses – investment the Tories will not match.
“England’s A&Es are getting worse, not better, and this panic move is too little to stop the NHS facing a difficult winter. It is further evidence that David Cameron can’t be trusted with it.”
Dr Maureen Baker, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “While we recognise that our hospital colleagues will be under increased pressure, so will GPs and practice teams, who already make 90% of all NHS patient contacts.
“An extra £25m to help general practice cope with the rising number of patients who will need care over the winter will be put to very good use. We also expect CCGs [clinical commissioning groups] to have discussions about how more of the funding announced today can be ploughed into general practice so that we can reduce pressure on hospitals and prevent unnecessary admissions.
“Last year GPs made at least 360m patient consultations – 40m more than five years ago – and demand for our services will undoubtedly be higher in the coming months. A&E might be handling 3,000 extra attendances a day more than in 2010, but in the same period the number of patients visiting their GP has risen by over 120,000 a day.”
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