1/5 It’s neither true nor accurate to say that “hospitals are imploding”. They’re under huge pressure and performance is the worst it’s been for a long time. But staff are seeing record numbers of patients and working extremely hard to keep patients safe. bbc.co.uk/news/health-50…
2/5 Hospital staff and leaders and the wider NHS deserve careful calibration of language when commenting on performance statistics. All of us who make public comment also have a duty not to exaggerate and to avoid unnecessarily scaring patients and the public......
3/5 The dictionary definition of “imploding” is “collapsing, causing to collapse violently inwards and end or fail suddenly or dramatically”. This is not happening so it’s not an accurate description and people shouldn’t be using it.
4/5 We would fully share concerns about the very high level of current pressure. We are also worried that the NHS is under this degree of pressure at this point, well before the full onset of winter. But we categorically do not believe hospitals are imploding.
5/5 On a different but related point, it is also worth adding that it’s not just hospitals that are under a high degree of pressure - community, ambulance and mental health services are under a similar amount of pressure.
