Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said “urgent action” was needed to save services from collapse, as six hospital trusts declared ‘major incidents’ due to high demand.
"There has never been a greater recognition amongst all staff that our current situation is worse than it has ever been," Cooksley said.
"And I know that people watching this will say, 'well every winter you have doctors on that say that this winter is terrible, that it's normal winter pressures',” he conceded. "But there is a complete acceptance from all colleagues now that this is different from all previous winters — and we need urgent action now."
Higher-than-average winter demand for hospital beds and emergency care have coincided with strikes by nurses and ambulance paramedics, while double-digit inflation may force hospitals to cut services.
Cooksley said the current demand was even worse than at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when non-urgent operations were cancelled and patients stayed away from accident and emergency (A&E) departments.
"We need to think carefully about how we can manage this and I think we need some urgent actions."
DIY Medicine
Meanwhile, new research has found that a quarter of adults have been unable to see a doctor in the past year — with one-in-six resorting to treating themselves or asking another unqualified person to do so.
The survey by Savanta ComRes, commissioned by the opposition Liberal Democrats, asked more than 2,000 Britons about their experiences with their general practitioner (GP) — family doctor — in 2022.
Almost three-quarters had tried to get an appointment, but 29 per cent had been unable to. Of those, about a third delayed seeing their GP, despite suffering pain or other symptoms, while a similar number just gave up.
A quarter of those unable to get an appointment bought drugs at a chemist or even online without asking a doctor for advice, while one in five went to a hospital A&E department — which are already at breaking point.
Eleven per cent paid to see a doctor privately despite having NHS cover, and 10 per cent made long journeys to see a doctor with available appointments.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey blamed the Conservative government for the problem, saying it had broken a promise to recruit 8,000 new GPs.
"This is a national scandal. Face-to-face GP appointments have become almost extinct in some areas of the country,” Davey said.
"The British public pay their fair share to the NHS, but years of government mismanagement and neglect of local health services has left millions unable to see their GP."