There is now only one logical solution to stop our NHS perma-crisis

If we want a health service that works we are going to have to start paying wealth taxes it is as stark as that

- Matthew d’Ancona

LIKE a grotesque mirror image of Advent, the NHS “winter crisis” has become an annual fixture — a painful reminder of the limitations of the health service, a litany of awful anecdotes and a ritual political controversy.

This year’s difficulties, however, are different. The overflowing morgues, the lengthening queues of ambulances, the A&E patient forced to wait 99 hours at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine warning that between 300 and 500 people are dying every week because of delays in urgent and emergency care — this is a system not only creaking at the joints but close to implosion.

Specifically, we are witnessing the long tail of Covid converging with a fresh spike in cases of the illness itself. During the pandemic, many with emerging conditions, especially cardiac and ischemic problems, stayed away from hospital, and now require more intensive treatment. Meanwhile, in the week before December 19, 7,158 patients were admitted with coronavirus — an increase of 36 per cent in only seven days.