Point-scoring hysteria won’t heal our NHS

NOBODY disputes for one moment that the NHS, in common with other European health services, is under huge strain this winter. Indeed, reports of patients kept waiting in makeshift wards – in one extraordinary case, for 36 hours – are a cause for profound concern.

Yet while some hospitals are clearly stretched even further than usual at this time of year, are this week’s mass postponements of operations and appointments truly justified?

The Mail asks because some of the language used by staff and campaigners to describe this annual crisis seems melodramatic in the extreme. Isn’t there a suspicion that some are exaggerating difficulties in a bid to extract yet more cash for the NHS, just weeks after the Chancellor promised extra billions?

Take a consultant’s claim that ‘ Third World’ conditions prevail in A&E at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, newly refurbished for £370million and with an annual budget of £750million – more than heavily populated Third World countries spend on their entire healthcare systems.

Meanwhile, wouldn’t BBC5 Live listeners have had a clearer perspective on the complaints of Danielle Tiplady – the Corporation’s pet staff nurse – if they’d been told she’s a Corbynite former contributor to the communist Morning Star?

Yes, there are systemic funding problems, caused by an ageing population and increasingly expensive treatments. Indeed, as this paper has long argued, we need a Royal Commission to examine calmly how to put the NHS and social care on a sustainable footing for the 21st century.

Panic measures and politically motivated hysteria won’t solve anything.