Doctors warn health services in danger of meltdown and facing ‘existential threat’

By Denis Campbell @ TheGuardian.com, July 8 (their headline story right now)

Hospitals are having to cancel operations and cancer scans are going unread for weeks because consultant doctors have suddenly begun working to rule in a standoff over NHS pensions.

Doctors say the dispute is escalating so quickly that it will send NHS services “into meltdown” and is so serious that it poses “an existential threat” to the health service’s survival. Changes to pension rules in 2016 mean rising numbers of consultants are receiving large bills linked to the value of their pension. Some are having to remortgage their homes to pay.

Waiting times for treatment, already the worst on record, are worsening as hospitals struggle to find senior doctors prepared to work more than their planned shifts, which could lead to them receiving a pension tax bill of as much as £80,000. NHS bosses fear the total number of patients in England waiting for non-urgent care such as a hip replacement or hernia repair, which already stands at 4.4 million, could soon head towards 5 million. [....]