NHS staff expose the nightmare of making life or death decisions in hospitals which are full to breaking point
THE nightmare of making life and death decisions while juggling beds in increasingly full hospitals has left some staff petrified of making errors.
The NHS has rarely been out of the news lately, with many experts insisting it is close to breaking point.
Last week England's top emergency doctor claimed it is "on its knees" as winter pressures mount, with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt slammed for being "completely out of touch"; after claiming the health service is coping better than last year today.
Yesterday we broke the news that at least two Brits a day are dying of thirst or starvation in our hospitals and care homes.
The realities of those who must deal with the sick and infirm are laid bare in Hospital, a documentary series starting on BBC2 this week and which was filmed in October and November.
Doctors, nurses, surgeons and clerical staff are seen attempting to juggle bed space to ensure the most ill are treated as quickly as possible.
St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, uses a traffic light system to detail space in its wards.
Amber means most of its 287 adult beds are full, while red shows major areas, like Accident & Emergency, and High Dependency are full.
There tends to be a code red at the hospital every three or four days.
"We’ve just had our worst 10 days on record. There’s nowhere in the hospital to move anybody," Dr Ali Sanders, chief of service for emergency and ambulatory care at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said.
“What’s happened in the last two years is the whole system, countrywide, has ground to a halt.
“It just makes us feel as though we are firefighting every single day.
“We are not unique at Imperial. We’re just struggling to keep afloat.
"Everyone’s working as hard as they can and I think they’re fed up of being told to be more efficient all the time...
"When people are working this hard day in, day out, they get tired. You hope they don’t make mistakes.”
When there's a code red, surgeons have to work to free up bed.
Devastatingly for some patients who aren't already in hospital, it means their operations will be put on hold.
A consultant surgeon called George Reese is seen waiting to operate on a man with rectal cancer because there is no bed for him to recover in.
Another man, called Simon, has to wait to here if his six-hour gullet cancer operation can take place. Professor George Hanna will do the procedure, but it's already been cancelled once before.
"It feels like all we do is manage beds but what we really do is manage people who need us to help them," Lesley Powls, site director at St Mary's, said.
"I do the right thing all the time in this job, but it’s not always right for one person.
“I do the right thing for the hospital and that’s really difficult because that does mean there will be people who, today, we haven’t done the right thing for.
"It’s not like I don’t go home some days, walk through the front door and start crying – because I do."
Today, Jeremy Hunt asked sick Brits to avoid A&E unless they were very ill to help ease the crisis.
Hospital airs on BBC2 on Wednesday January 11 at 9pm