'The barriers to accessing timely care can put people’s lives at risk' - Healthwatch England's response to the Care Quality Commission's 'State of Care' report
Twelve months ago, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) highlighted the risk of a tsunami of unmet need across all sectors of health and social care. Today (Friday 21 October 2022), they have published their latest report, 'The state of health care and adult social care in England 2021/22'.
In response to the report, Louise Ansari, National Director at Healthwatch England, said:
"The report echoes many of the issues people have raised with us, such as difficulties getting through to their GP team or getting the care they need in a timely way.
"The result is that some people end up going to A&E instead of general practice. Others struggle to get referrals, while many waiting for hospital care report feeling isolated and without support. And in social care, levels of unmet need continue to have a huge impact on unpaid carers, older people, and those living with learning or physical disabilities.
"Feelings of frustration and confusion about how to access care are starting to affect the public’s confidence that the NHS will be there for them when they need it. The barriers to accessing timely care can put people’s lives at risk and widen health inequalities, with disabled people and those on lower incomes, being particularly affected.
"People really appreciate the care they get and the hard work of staff, but we need to make sure that our health and care services are supported so that everyone who needs care can access it as quickly as possible and in a way that meets their needs."
On maternity services, Healthwatch England said:
"In the wake of the Ockenden review and this week’s report on East Kent Hospitals Trust, it is deeply troubling that CQC’s findings suggest the troubles in maternity care could be much wider spread.
"Over the course of the pandemic we spoke with almost 2,500 new parents about their experiences of maternity care, with the feedback showing a significant decline in positive experiences about services. Issues were more likely to affect people from minority ethnic backgrounds.
"One of the consistent issues highlighted was the limits to partners attending appointments and being present during labour. Even in straightforward scenarios, the lack of partner support made it harder for mums to get basic help, such as having a drink of water. In more complex circumstances, it meant the women giving birth had no one there to help advocate for them when they were struggling to communicate with doctors and midwives.
"Where incidents did occur, people told us that not having partners present had a compounding effect on both their physical and mental health. Despite this feedback, we continued to hear about restrictions being applied in maternity services for far longer than in other parts of the NHS.
"Dr Bill Kirkup pointed in his report directly to repeated and systemic failures to listen to patients, and how this has led to continued scandals across the NHS. Health and care leaders need to address the underlying reluctance to listen to patient feedback, otherwise we will undoubtedly continue to see these sorts of inexcusable incidents for years to come."
On A&E, Healthwatch England said:
"Our latest research shows that public confidence in A&E and ambulances has taken a serious hit over the last few years.
"Public confidence could be much improved by concentrating on what matters most to patients when they need urgent care. This includes ensuring services are assessing people’s needs quickly to provide patients with reassurance about what’s wrong, and clearly communicating that the sickest patients are being prioritised.
"Managing patient flow will also be critical to how well hospitals and other urgent care services cope over the next few months. This means the NHS needs to make maximum use of services like 111 and out of hours community services to ensure people are getting the right care, in the right place and at the right time. This can help to ensure people’s needs don’t escalate and end up with them needing to visit A&E, which is a much better outcome for patients while reducing burdens on hospitals this winter."
The report includes references to eight distinct pieces of work by Healthwatch as evidence supporting issues within health and care system.
