The side effects of a stretched NHS

You can barely go a day at the moment without there being a story in the news about NHS services. From ambulance waiting times, to patients unable to see a regular doctor, or staffing levels creating an ‘unacceptable risk’, years of underfunding and the fallout from Brexit has left the health service on its knees.

It’s difficult enough when one area is stretched, but when it is all of them, the risk to patients across the board is significant.

Hospital waiting times that are leaving patients in pain for months, or early opportunities to diagnose illnesses such as cancer being missed.

Ambulances being unable to drop patients off at A&E, because not only are the beds full in that department, but also on the wards, where there are patients unable to go home because of the strain on the care system. It’s a chain and the result is unacceptable lengths of time for people to be waiting for an ambulance to get to them in an emergency.

People are also unable to either get a GP appointment, or to see the same GP, resulting in signs of serious illness going unnoticed.

Administrators of medicines, either in a clinical or care setting, being so stretched that they are making mistakes.

The list goes on and people are losing their lives as a result.

We are seeing a rise in clinical negligence cases that are coming to us where people have been let down by the NHS at a time when they are needed the most. Mistakes are inevitable given the strains on the services, but that doesn’t make it right and the service has a dedicated fund to compensate patients who have suffered, unnecessarily.

If you have suffered as a result of clinical negligence, you may be entitled to compensation and our sympathetic team of specialist solicitors can help and advise you on the best course of action. Click here to email us, or call us on 01633 244233.