The winter crisis has left the NHS running on empty – it needs a fix, now | Chris Hopson

Care and safety is being compromised as the service was at full capacity before winter even started – the government must give it a new long-term funding settlement

• Chris Hopson is chief executive of NHS Providers

Things got so tough in the NHS last winter that we said “never again”. Preparations this time have been more thorough and extensive than ever before, but here we are again: resources overstretched, staff run ragged and – too often, in too many places – standards of care compromised and patient safety put at risk. In the past, mild weather and low flu rates helped us scrape by. Maybe if we had been lucky again this year we could, just about, have coped once more.

But flu cases are rising, there is more respiratory illness, and the cold weather is taking its toll. Trusts are doing all they can to provide good care for patients. And every day in the NHS there are countless acts of kindness and compassion by staff who rise above these challenges. But the simple truth is that, within the current funding and workforce constraints, the health service can only do so much.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2DisWMQ
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