COUNTY health funding boss Joe McManners fears a “sticking plaster” approach to NHS issues as the May General Election draws near.

The Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group clinical chairman is concerned the symptoms rather than the cause of major issues will take centre stage.

The Headington GP spoke as he looked back on his first year at the head of the group, which makes most NHS funding decisions.

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The 38-year-old said: “The tendency can be a bit to focus on obvious things going wrong like the symptoms of the condition.

“If you have people on trolleys in A&E or waiting a long time then that is a sign of the system under stress.

“But what I don’t think is focused on enough is the right causes and solutions which are further back in time in the patient’s journey.

“It is about trying to get services in the community and the right support before somebody gets sick in the first place.”

A case in point is long waiting times at Oxfordshire’s accident and emergency departments.

At present, 91.8 per cent of A&E patients nationally are seen within four hours, but the performance has been worse at Oxford’s John Radcliffe and Banbury’s Horton General hospitals.

In the second week of December, the record was just 88.7 per cent – the worst it had been since April 2013.

Asked if the Government’s target of 95 per cent of A&E patients being seen within four hours will be met by the end of March, Dr McManners said: “I would have to hope so but I can’t really tell.”

He said: “Pressure on the health system is increasing and it is about dealing with complex needs, particularly for older people who are living at home.

“They are stuck in hospital and that is the group we are looking at.”

Services like an emergency multi-disciplinary unit at Witney Community Hospital, which opened in October, are the right kind of solutions, he said, moving some care out of major hospitals so specialists can focus on increasingly complex and advanced care.

Staff are “working harder than ever” but he said: “There is a question about how much we can continue stretching the existing system without doing something more radical about how we change our services.”

The former Labour Oxford city councillor said “barriers” between council-managed social care and the NHS have to be broken down “so we are talking about a single service, effectively”.

This is vital to tackle “bed blocking”– where a person is well enough to leave hospital but cannot because community support is not available.

Oxfordshire remains one of the worst areas in England, with the latest monthly survey showing 128 beds ‘blocked’ at one time.

Dr McManners said: “There isn’t any easy solution, otherwise people would have worked it out.

“A lot of it is improving the number of people and capacity we have for social care and community care and getting processes right in hospital.”

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