Over a million operations missed due to anaesthetist shortage, warns Streeting | UK | News
MORE than a million operations or procedures are being cancelled every year due to a shortage of anaesthetists, the government has warned.
In a letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the Royal College of Anaesthetists – RCoA – revealed that 1.4 million operations are lost each year because the UK is short of almost 2,000 of these specialist doctors.
The RCoA blames the problem on a lack of anaesthetic training places and is calling on the minister to increase funding to allocate more.
If this is not done, the NHS will not be able to reduce the 7.6 million hospital waiting list.
The RCoA’s warning comes amid concerns that hospitals are replacing staff doctors with inadequate training, known as anaesthesia associates.
The RCoA letter, a copy of which will be sent to Karin Smyth, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, also called for “waiting lists” to be transformed into “preparation lists” for patients to be “fit” for surgery.
The RCoA’s warning comes amid concerns that hospitals are replacing staff doctors with inadequate training, known as anaesthesia associates.
The RCoA letter, a copy of which will be sent to Karin Smyth, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, also called for “waiting lists” to be transformed into “preparation lists” for patients to be “fit” for surgery.
The college says that while the risk of death and major complications after surgery is generally low (less than one percent of patients), it is high (10 to 15 percent) in “high-risk” patients such as those with diabetes, smokers or obesity.
She called on the Health Secretary to ensure patients receive support and advice to reduce their surgical risks while they wait for their procedure.
Dr Fiona Donald, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, warned: “We have written to the Health Secretary because he wants to tackle the NHS backlog and make it more efficient. We have explained to him why the shortage of anaesthetists has reached critical levels and is stopping patients from getting the operations they so desperately need.”
“Unless government policies include increasing the number of anaesthetists, any attempts to reduce waiting lists will have little impact.”
She added: “Although serious complications and deaths are rare after surgery, a number of patients do suffer complications. If patients improved their health before surgery, the number of complications could be reduced by 30-80% and their length of stay in hospital could be reduced by 1-2 days, saving the NHS millions of pounds.”
RCoA figures show there is a shortfall of 1,900 anaesthetists out of a pool of 10,628. It estimates there are currently five doctors applying for a training place each year – 2,600 doctors for 550 funded places.
In recent months, doctors’ unions have also expressed concern that physician associates and anesthesiologists, who are clinicians not trained in medicine, are being used as substitutes for doctors.
The RoCA admitted that Associates in Anesthesia (AA) “are not medical doctors and their training is shorter and more restricted than that of an anesthesiologist.”
About 3.11 million people out of 7.6 million on the hospital waiting list have been waiting for more than 18 weeks. Nearly 307,500 have been waiting for more than a year.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The government inherited a struggling NHS. Our mission is to get it back on its feet and reduce waiting lists. We will start by delivering 40,000 extra operations, scans and appointments every week and ensure the NHS has the staff it needs to be there for all of us when we need them.”
