Does the NHS work on bank holidays?
No. Well, most of it does not.
In this article we will describe what are NHS services on bank holidays.
On bank holidays, your GP practice and most pharmacies will be shut. The emergency parts of hospitals do work normally – like A&E, emergency surgery, labour ward, intensive and coronary care. Little happens in the rest of hospital.
For example, there are no planned operations, routine consultant ward rounds on most wards, procedure lists, xrays like CTs and MRIs, and outpatient clinics. Some [including CKDEx! Ed] think this is a waste of a valuable resource.
In this way, bank holidays are similar to weekends, especially Sundays.
For example, NHS111 (24 hours) and Walk-in, Urgent Treatment and Minor Illness/Injury Centres (8am-8pm) do work on bank holidays (and weekends) are a good place to start.
It is not a good idea to go to A&E for non life-threatening illnesses on bank holidays (and weekends) just because they are ‘open’.
Run of out of tablets?
If you have run out of tablets and no pharmacy is open (you can get emergency prescriptions there), go to one of the centres above. Whichever you do, please take your current prescription.
As it is not easy to get an emergency prescription, it is important you order repeat prescriptions in plenty of time.
Weekend Effect
“Patients should get the same high quality, safe care on a Saturday and Sunday as they do on a weekday” according the Department of Health (DHSC). They do not mention bank holidays. Either way, at weekends and on bank holidays, you get a worse quality of care.
In fact hospital mortality is 11% higher at weekends, and bank holidays. This is true for all types of diseases: medical and surgical (big or small operations). The wikipedia page on the weekend effect shows the evidence for this observation.
Summary
Does the NHS work on bank holidays? No, sorry .. well, only a relatively small part of it. It should all work. We have described NHS services on bank holidays.
Note. It is also true that hospital death rate increases by 11% at weekends and on bank holidays. Therefore periods when there are bank holidays near to weekends are especially dangerous – especially Xmas-New Year and Easter.
