'Health MOTs' a welcome measure to support emergency care services
Responding to NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard’s comments that frail patients will be given ‘health MOTs’ at A&Es Rory Deighton, director of the NHS Confederation’s Acute Network, said:
“We welcome any measures that will help take the pressure off our urgent and emergency care services as well as making sure patients are getting timely care in the best possible environment.
“These ‘health MOTs’ will allow staff to identify patients who do not need to be admitted to hospital and signpost them to specialist services. They form part of a range of measures health leaders and their teams have been introducing over the last few years to try to keep patients happy, healthy and out of hospital whenever possible.
“But while services like these are vital to helping ease the pressure on urgent and emergency care our members understand that the road to recovery will be long and difficult. The NHS has just been through one of its most difficult winters ever and still faces rising demand and the threat of ongoing industrial action. The combination of pressures has led to extremely long waits, corridor care and ambulance handover delays – care that would have been unthinkable a decade ago and that must not become the new normal.
“The NHS is also in a very tough financial position and faced with some very ambitious productivity and efficiency targets. Health leaders told us that they could be forced to cut clinical or administrative staff to balance their books. We remain concerned that short-term pressures could jeopardise long term ambitions to improve performance.”
