Saturday, January 2, 1999 Published at 10:26 GMT
Hospitals 'facing winter crisis'
Some hospital units may have to close for patients' safety, the BMA said
Doctors have warned that hospitals around the UK are facing a crisis this winter to the extent that some units might be forced to close.
Opposition MPs claim operations have been put off because of a shortage of staff in intensive care units. The government has already come under fire from the Liberal Democrats who claim that it is draining money from the National Health Service because it is employing nurses from the private sector to fill nursing jobs.
After a consultant from Liverpool University Hospital warned his casualty department was only two days away from collapse, the BMA has now said that many more hospitals could be facing the same situation.
But he told Radio 4's Today programme the government had taken action to deal with the problem.
"All over the country the NHS - with the money we have provided especially for the winter pressure - is coping very well in very difficult circumstance."
Mr Dobson said there was an "acute" problem in the north west where there was a flu epidemic and ambulance calls in Liverpool and Manchester had increased from an average of 500 to 600 a day to 1,000.
But he said extra beds and staff had been provided and the health service was coping "better than it has in the past".
"The extraordinary thing is that the Secretary of State did not allow for this to happen," she told Today.
"He has been putting such emphasis on waiting list initiatives that he has distorted priorities elsewhere."
She acknowledged that the government had managed to push some waiting lists down, but said the times for some operations were increasing.
"That is because all their efforts have gone into getting quick, simple operations done so that numbers come down but those on the list for longer, more complex ones have gone on waiting."
And Liberal Democrat health spokesman Dr Evan Harris said the government had put political priorities above the needs of patients by concentrating on getting waiting lists down and had been complacent on staffing problems.
He said: "The government's funding strategy relied on a less virulent strain of flu emerging - it is coming apart at the genes."
The row was triggered by claims from the BMA that some hospital units might be forced to close because of the pressure they are under.
"I can see circumstances where with an increase in emergency admissions with, for example flu epidemic, some units will have to close on the grounds of patient safety," he said.
"Unless [the government] addresses the fundamental issue of staff pay we're not going to get enough nurses and other health workers into the system to run the beds and to run the wards and the casualty departments."