A WORCESTERSHIRE doctor will be among those calling for a 'national debate' about the 'NHS crisis' when he attends an emergency conference next week.

Dr Simon Parkinson, chairman of the Worcestershire Local Medical Committee, will be among those to make their views known at the British Medical Association special representative meeting in London this Tuesday.

The 'emergency conference' will address the crises of funding, staffing and morale as doctors seek 'evidence-based solutions' which protect patient care.

The meeting will take place between 10am and 5pm at Church House Westminster, Deans Yard, Westminster.

The BMA is urging doctors to attend amid mounting financial and workforce pressures which they say threaten to undermine doctors, patient safety and the NHS.

We have already reported how the three Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) which manage NHS budgets in Worcestershire have to save £25 million this year (2015/16) alone and are opening up discussions on how further, undisclosed savings can be made through a public questionnaire.

Savings this year will be achieved through delivering more patient care in the community rather than hospitals, avoiding inappropriate hospital admissions, and reducing the amount of prescribed medicines that are wasted each year.

Dr Simon Parkinson said the junior doctors strikes, this last round of which has controversially included emergency care, is just one issue among many confronting the NHS.

He said: "The bigger issue is the fact pretty much every bit of the NHS is struggling.

"If we talk to our colleagues in hospitals there are massive pressures upon them and there have been concerns that mental health services are inadequate.

Dr Parkinson added: "There's a feeling that this needs to be a public debate. It's not an anti-Government thing or militant action.

"But it is saying 'this really is quite a serious situation we're in, we have to have some way of dealing with it'.

"It is trying to start a national debate."

BMA council chairman Mark Porter said that the extraordinary meeting was in response to the ongoing and ‘unprecedented’ pressures facing healthcare, adding that he hoped the occasion would be an opportunity for the medical community to discuss its concerns.

The three Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Groups, which hold the purse strings for care and decide how funds are spent locally, say although they have not overspent at all, it is becoming ever more challenging to maintain financial balance each year.

The total 2015/16 allocation for NHS South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group which pays for NHS services in the south of county is £448.298m (£1,483 per head of population but the organisation believes it should receive £457.177m (£1,513 per head of population) An NHS spokesman said: "This leaves the CCG £8.879m (1.94 per cent) under target."

The South Worcestershire CCG is also tasked with making efficiency savings of £10.2m this year alone.

A spokesperson said: "However this challenge becomes more and more difficult each year, which is why we are already thinking a few years ahead about the sort of things we might need to consider in the future."