Arrest drunks who clog up casualty wards, says doctors' leader as A&E crisis forces hospitals to axe 300 operations a day
- Call comes from College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Cliff Mann
- He said 'very few people are arrested' so 'they do it again the next week'
- Comments were criticised by several groups including Police Federation
- They came after 3,274 operations axed in first two weeks of December
- 161 urgent procedures cancelled, 21 of which axed more than once
Drunks who clog up casualty wards should be arrested in a 'zero-tolerance' crackdown, Britain's A&E chief has said.
College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Cliff Mann called on police to break a cycle that has made extreme pressure on doctors 'normal' on Friday and Saturday nights.
He spoke as it emerged more than 300 patients had operations cancelled every working day in the first two weeks of this month, with winter illness clogging beds.
Crackdown: Drunks who clog up A&E should be arrested, a casualty doctors' leader has said (file photo)
The figures, released by the NHS, show 1,788 operations were cancelled in the second week of this month alone - the highest in any single week since the start of November.
Most were routine 'elective' procedures but 71 were urgent operations, seven of which were cancelled more than once.
Dr Cliff Mann (pictured) said it should not be 'normal' for wards to be inundated with drunks
Dr Mann, who also spoke in expectation of a huge spike in A&E attendances on New Year's Eve, said 'these days very few people are arrested' meaning 'they do it again the next week'.
'There's far too much acceptance that this is normal for a Friday or Saturday night,' he told the Observer. 'It's not normal. It shouldn't be normal.
'If more people knew that if they got drunk they were going to be arrested, they wouldn't drink in the first place and then end up in A&E.'
He added: 'We aren’t really using carrots and sticks to change their behaviour. There are no sanctions on people for being a nuisance and for taking up vital A&E resources as a result of their own alcohol excess. Fines have clearly not worked.'
He described argumentative and obnoxious patients, and their acquaintances, who can end up being physically abusive towards staff, and said workers are fed up having to deal with such people.
But several organisations including the Police Federation said the issue is too complex to deal with by a 'crackdown', and jailing people is not always the answer.
Katherine Brown, director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies think tank, and Emily Robinson, director of campaigns at charity Alcohol Concern, told the Observer the problem needs to be tackled at the source, by looking at the easy availability of cheap alcohol.
Today it emerged more than 300 operations are being cancelled every working day as the already under-strain NHS faces up to the pressures of winter.
Increase: NHS figures show the increase in cancelled operations per week from 1,360 in November to 1,788
In the first two weeks of December, 3,274 operations were cancelled - an average of 327 every working day, NHS England figures show.
Most of them were planned elective procedures, and Labour party chiefs claimed many were called off just hours before surgery when patients had already been admitted.
Attack: Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham blamed the problems on the government
According to Labour that number rose 16 per cent since the first fortnight of December last year, and almost 50 per cent in two years.
Some 161 urgent operations were also cancelled - up from 138 last year - and 21 of them were cancelled more than once.
The same two-week period also saw a record 159,054 patients admitted to A&E wards, up from 159,054 last year.
Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham accused the government of triggering the crisis by taking social care away from the elderly.
'This is yet another sign that, under David Cameron, the NHS is simply not working,' he said.
'Standards of patient care are slipping by the week and now more and more people get ready for an operation only to face a last minute postponement.'
The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt hit back at Labour's claims today.
He described coverage of the figures as 'disappointing' and said the number of cancelled operations had remained relatively stable since 2010.
Posting a graph on Twitter, he said that was achieved despite the overall number of operations increasing by 'nearly 1million' since the same year.
Critics, however, questioned the 1million figure and pointed out that the graph showed only the figures for July to September in each year.
Fightback: Health secretary Jeremy Hunt responded by tweeting a graph which showed the number of cancelled operations in July to September each year remaining 'stable' while demand went up
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