NHS deaths could be halved, say doctors

More than 10,000 people are dying needlessly each year after being denied intensive care treatment, according to senior doctors, reports the Daily Telegraph.

In a letter to the Health Secretary Alan Johnson, the group of 17 eminent anaesthetists warn that many patients are dying after routine surgery because of a failure to identify them as "high-risk" cases.

The result is that they are not monitored closely enough, causing at least 20,000 deaths each year.

The consultants say that the figure could be halved if simple tests to identify high-risk cases were introduced, so that they are transferred to intensive care, and also challenge the health secretary to explain why technology proven to cut deaths is used in only a fraction of NHS operations.

The number of critical care beds devoted to post-operative patients should be tripled from the 30,000 currently provided, while 50% of patients should receive extra care, the doctors say.

One of the co-signatories, David Bennett, Emeritus Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at St George's Hospital in London, said: "There are at least 20,000 patients dying after surgery across the UK - that is a very conservative estimate.

"We think we could halve the numbers dying, and save at least 10,000 lives a year, if patients were given the right support.

"This is a political decision. There aren't many interventions that could have such a dramatic effect."

Prof Bennett said that most hospitals had failed to invest in equipment such as fitness bikes, which help to assess the patient's health prior to surgery, and blood-flow monitors, which maintain fluid levels and cardiac output during an operation.

Despite backing from NHS rationing body the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, blood -flow monitors are used on less than 10% of patients.

Dr Bruce Taylor, honorary secretary of The Intensive Care Society blamed a lack of funds for the situation.

He said more patients should be monitored by intensive care before they became seriously ill. But he said there was "no slack at all in the existing system" to take on more patients without a substantial rise in funds.

Britain has 0.6 critical care beds per 10,000 population compared to 4.4 per 10,000 in the US.

"There are not enough beds and we regularly struggle to meet demand," Dr Taylor said.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Government was doing all it could to ensure hospitals provided efficient surgical care.

That's not quite true, of course. Given a lack of funds is being blamed for this situation, "all it could" hardly includes wasting billions of pounds a year on an organisation - the EU - that clearly wastes so much and whose auditors can't tell us how that money is being spent.

If there is no money to improve patient care or cut needless deaths in the ways outlined, then the government should immediately cut back on waste elsewhere.

At least refuse to pay the EU the promised extra money, and perhaps consider cutting back on the multi-billion pound annual contributions we already make.