NHS England has extended measures to defer non-urgent inpatient elective care and routine outpatient appointments until 31 January.
The NHS National Emergency Pressures Panel made a series of recommendations to hospitals to address the sustained pressure, including increased support from Allied Health Professionals for rehabilitation and discharge.
Rob Yeldham, Director of Strategy at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said:
‘Measures introduced by NHS England to delay non-urgent care further highlight the enormous scale of winter pressures.
‘Physiotherapists regularly switch from an outpatient role to support rehabilitation and discharge of A&E patients. It is essential however that outpatient services are only postponed in the most extreme of cases.
‘Services which can provide a longer term benefit to patients, for example falls prevention, help people to live independently and ease the pressure on emergency care by reducing A&E admissions.’
Read the update from the NHS National Emergency Pressures Panel here and news coverage here.
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1. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy is the UK’s professional, educational and trade union body. We have more than 57,000 members, including chartered physiotherapists, physiotherapy students and support workers.
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