The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) is to review surgical services at Barts and Royal London hospitals, east London after five surgeons submitted their resignations over a ‘dangerous’ lack of supplies, staff and beds.
A leaked resignation email from one of the five, orthopaedic surgeon David Goodier, showed the reality that the £20bn of NHS cuts and the PFI is producing.
He said: ‘The supplies situation is dangerous. We are regularly out of kit, out of nurses, and always out of beds.
‘We have become so used to this situation it is no longer seen as a crisis, it is the norm.’
He continued: ‘I did an operation last week on a fracture that kept getting bumped by more urgent cases.
‘It was three weeks down the line and healed in a bad position. There was nothing I could do for him.
‘I look patients in the eye and tell them they might sit around for five or even six days of starving for an operation that might get cancelled at the last minute.’
He concluded: ‘I have been complicit in a poor standard of trauma care and am guilty of negligence by association.
‘I can no longer stand idly by when patients are at best having their human rights breached, and at worst physically harmed by the care they receive.’
RCS President Professor Norman Williams said in a statement yesterday: ‘The Royal College of Surgeons has been asked to conduct an independent review of surgical services at Barts & The Royal London.
‘This will be going ahead in January and the Trust will receive a report of recommendations shortly after.
‘The consultants at the Royal London are passionate about providing the very best quality of care for their patients.’
BMA Council member Anna Athow commented: ‘Well done to the orthopaedic surgeons at Barts/London, who lifted the lid on a situation which has been developing in hospitals for many years, but has now reached a crisis point, with the ruthless driving through of the £20bn QIPP cuts.
‘PCTs are cutting their funding to acute hospitals. Management are forced to close wards, leave nursing posts unfilled, reduce theatre staff and cut theatre time.
‘They have not got the day-to-day cash for surgical instrument kits.
‘Entire hospitals are under threat of run down and closure all over London, as a result of these McKinsey cuts.
‘The money saved is going straight into huge new deals for the private sector, such as the £1bn deal to Circle to take over Hinchingbrooke hospital, on top of the cost of PFI loans.
‘The £4bn Royal London PFI contract is the biggest in the country.
‘The inquiry by the Royal College of surgeons is fine – but we know the cause of the problems.
‘These cuts have to be resisted and the privatising Health and Social Care Bill thrown out.
‘Health unions like Unison, the BMA, RCN and GMB need to urgently organise concerted industrial action to defend jobs and work places.
‘The NHS is being rapidly turned from a provider of care into a denier of care. In the interests of protecting patient care and a properly funded health service, this coalition government needs to go.’
