NHS hospitals overwhelmed with patients says top doctor an ‘eternal winter’

The UK's National Health Service is now so overwhelmed, patients could die, warned Dr Mark Holland, president of the Society for Acute Medicine said yesterday.

Dr Holland said that the NHS was now in an ''eternal winter''.

The grim warning from doctors involved in acute care comes after figures showed record numbers of sick people were having to wait longer than they should for treatment, with the NHS admitting it had missed all its key waiting time targets in the same month for the first time in hospitals in England.

In January a total of 212,136 patients were not treated within four hours, 17,392 had not had their x-ray, CT or MRI scan inside six weeks and 51,545 had to wait on a trolley for at least four hours before getting a hospital bed.

''A government which has the laudable aim of reducing hospital deaths by 11,000 must recognise overcrowded hospitals that are full of sick patients in overstretched medical units will contribute to avoidable deaths,'' The Guardian quoted Dr Holland.

''The ability to deliver acute medical care is reaching crisis point and any other crisis affecting our society would be acknowledged and addressed. The volume of patients and disease severity is so much that we are now functioning at the edge of what is possible,'' he added. ''The NHS is running out of steam.''

The NHS had recorded its worst-ever performance figures with tens of thousands of patients waiting too long for urgent and life-saving treatment.

Targets had been missed across the board in A&E waits, diagnosing and treating cancer, waits for hip and knee operations, and 999 response times.

Over 8,500 mainly elderly patients were stuck in hospital beds unable to go home, and wards were getting more overcrowded.

The government faced criticism from Labour for failing the NHS and patients, even as cancer charities said the figures were unacceptable and worrying.