Sick child’s mother rebukes Steve Barclay over NHS staff being ‘worked to the bone’

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The mother of a sick girl has confronted the UK health secretary during a hospital visit, telling him that NHS staff are “worked to the bone” and the government is doing “terrible damage” to families on waiting lists.

Sarah Pinnington-Auld, whose three-year-old daughter, Lucy, has cystic fibrosis, rebuked Steve Barclay over NHS staff working conditions and long waits for treatment as he visited King’s College hospital in London.

She told the Conservative cabinet minister how her daughter was pushed off an “absolutely horrific” waiting list because of “the obscene number of people who came through and the lack of resources”.

“The damage that you’re doing to families like myself is terrible, because it was agony for us as a family waiting for that call,” she said. “Preparing our children, for their sister and her hospital visit, for then it to be cancelled. And I know you look and we’re all numbers, but actually they’re people waiting for care.”

Pinnington-Auld could be heard telling Barclay that staff were “absolutely amazing” but pressures on the NHS were affecting Lucy’s care, with her bronchoscopy delayed because of a lack of beds.

“The doctors, the nurses, everyone on the ward is just brilliant, considering what they’re under, considering the shortage of staff, considering the lack of resources,” she said.

“That’s what’s really upsetting, actually, because we have a daughter with a life-limiting, life-shortening condition and we have some brilliant experts and they’re being worked to the bone, and actually the level of care they provide is amazing, but they are not being able to provide it in the way they want to provide it because the resourcing is not there.”

She also criticised the government for blaming long delays on the Covid pandemic when waiting lists were lengthy even before. “We were short of doctors, we were short of beds going into the pandemic, so I think it is really wrong to blame it on the pandemic,” she said.

She warned that until the social care crisis was resolved, there would continue to be a shortage of hospital beds. “Until you as a government prioritise health and social care, you’re not going to free up the already limited number of beds,” she said.