Winter Pressures Blog Series

Winter is historically a time of enormous pressure for health and social care. The COVID pandemic, a workforce stretched to breaking point, years of underfunding and a broken social care system have all compounded to create a level of pressure that threatens to push the NHS to crisis point this winter. Inevitably, those who will be impacted most by this situation are those who access health and social care services the most - older people.

The BGS has long since advocated for solutions to this worsening situation, the effects of which we believe could be lessened significantly with the correct system-wide planning, investment, innovation and political motivation.

Yet there are some immediate, practical steps that can be taken to help reduce the pressure this coming winter, and mitigate the potentially devastating consequences for older people living with frailty.

This #WinterPressures blog series serves to highlight some of the solutions that BGS members and their multidisciplinary colleagues are implementing to alleviate the worst of the current pressures, and deliver the best possible outcomes for older people as winter approaches. We hope you find inspiration in these blogs, and we encourage you to share them widely with colleagues, and on social media, using the hashtag #WinterPressures.

Blogs in this series

A less awful winter: what can we do?

In the opening blog of our Winter Pressures series, BGS President, Professor Adam Gordon, writes about the tremendous pressures on the health system last winter and hopes for this year.

27 October 2023

Winter is coming! Protecting care home residents

How can we best support care home residents to remain in their homes and avoid the exposure to unintended harms of a hospital admission?

30 October 2023

Every winter has its spring

Dr Rowan Wallace writes about national healthcare initiatives in Scotland and how these can be implemented locally.

31 October 2023

Intermediate care

If you want to ensure older people who have been acutely unwell are supported to recover, then you need services that facilitate rehabilitation, reablement and recovery.

01 November 2023