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Patients being treated in hospital corridors is a shame NHS, Wes Streeting he said, as the new survey indicates satisfaction health service reached a record low level.
The Health Secretary, who has spent this week visiting accident and emergency departments across the country in the midst of a flurry of flu patientshe said he was left feeling “a combination of pride and shame”. He said he met one patient – an elderly woman – who spent 30 hours in the corridor on a gurney.
The Health Secretary’s comments come after new research found that just 31 per cent of adults are satisfied with the service provided by GPs and hospitals – a historic low for NHS satisfaction ratings.
The previous lowest level of public satisfaction was 34 per cent in 1997, just before Tony Blair took office.
survey, conducted by Ipsos for The Sunday Timesshowed that satisfaction with health care is higher among older groups, with 42 percent of those aged 75 and over feeling satisfied.
Just 27 per cent of those aged 35 to 44 were satisfied with the NHS, while the figure was just 26 per cent for those suffering from a long-term health condition.
Mr Streeting said: “Under the Conservatives, the ‘NHS winter crisis’ came as consistently as the John Lewis adverts and the Coca-Cola truck. No wonder [The] The Sunday Times poll shows public satisfaction with NHS at rock bottom.”
Reflecting on his visit to emergency departments, he added: “As I think about these visits, I feel a combination of pride and shame. Proud of the people who work in our National Health Service, who go out of their way to give people the best possible care.
“It’s a shame to see people on wheelchairs in corridors, many of their waits could be avoided if the right care was available closer to home – often in their own homes.”
He also said Labor had “fell to rock bottom” since winning a historic election victory in July.
“Our immediate action to deal with the doctors’ strikes means this is the first winter in three years with staff on the front line and not on the picket line.
“We’ve gone to vaccination hell, with flu and Covid vaccines now joined by RSV [respiratory syncytial virus] vaccine for the first time. NHS Community Trusts and Ambulance Services are innovating to deter people from going to A&E and A&E unnecessarily.”
But he added: “There is still much to do: to stabilize our local pharmacies, to improve mental health and to tackle the crisis in social care. It will take time. We have only been in power for less than six months. A lot done, a lot more to do.”
It comes amid warnings from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that the situation could worsen as we head into winter, with the organisation’s chairman Dr Adrian Boyle accusing the government of failing to make emergency care a “political priority”.
“Since last year, we’ve been worried that we’ve gone backwards,” he said. “Last year we estimated, based on scientific evidence, that almost 14,000 additional deaths occurred due to long stays in emergency departments … I worry that it could be worse than that.”