While the funeral of Queen Elizabeth will be observed on Monday throughout the United Kingdom, thousands of people will have their doctor appointments cancelled, food banks will be shuttered, and supermarkets will be closed due to an unexpected national holiday.
After learning that National Health Service (NHS) appointments they had waited months to acquire were abruptly cancelled, many people have been left angry.
According to Ellen Welch, co-chair of the physicians’ organisation DAUK, ‘patients who may have been waiting up to two years for elective surgery or appointments – if they are then cancelled on the 19th, this will be tremendously traumatic.’
As front-line NHS employees, DAUK are left to question if government decision-makers truly comprehend how their actions play out on the ground, Welch said.
More than 6 million people are on waiting lists for hospital care in Britain, where the government-run NHS is already experiencing its biggest staffing crisis in history. 888,000 general practise appointments are handled there on average every day, according to calculations made by Reuters using information from the previous six months.
Concerns exist over the NHS’s ability to rebook appointments and the urgency with which physicians must arrange childcare.
‘Actually, the problem is the short notice. Planning may always be done around scheduled holidays ‘explained Oxford University professor and physician Helen Salisbury.
‘It’s incredibly hard to tell how they’re going to proceed if you think about folks who are waiting for chemotherapy or cancer tests.’
NHS employees will make sure urgent and emergency services are accessible on any national holiday, a spokesperson said.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Liz Truss confirmed that the NHS will ‘continue to operate’ on that day.
Individual trusts are undoubtedly keeping an eye out for any potential effects of the postponements.
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