The Health and Social Care Committee is to examine pressures on
emergency care and whether they contributed to the high number of
excess deaths reported for the last week of December.
In a topical session to be held later this month, the President
of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Dr Adrian Boyle will
be questioned about his suggestion that long waits in A&E
were linked to increased deaths.
Senior leaders from NHS England will also appear before the
Committee to give their analysis of the extent to which pressures
on Accident and Emergency departments might have played a part
and to examine some of the solutions to relieve winter pressures.
Other witnesses called to give evidence: Chief Strategy Officer NHS
England, Professor Redhead, National Clinical Director
for Urgent and Emergency Care NHSE, and Vin Diwakar, Medical
Director National Transformation NHSE.
Chair's comments
Chair of the Health and
Social Care Committee said:
“The President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has
suggested that overcrowding and longer waits for emergency care
could be linked to hundreds of deaths a week. We’ll be probing
the evidence for this alarming claim.
“We’re also hearing from senior representatives from NHS England
to ask whether they recognise these figures and to question them
on solutions to relieve some of the winter pressures to ensure
that fewer patients face the current intolerable situations at
A&E departments.”
