We know the NHS is in crisis. The tales from the front line are horrific. They talk about a service on its knees, crippled by a decade of underfunding.
Patients left waiting for hours, doctors and nurses at their wits’ end, desperate to help – but unable to.
For a long time now, this state of affairs has been put before the Government. And it hasn’t acted. What will it take? What will be the tipping point, where ministers listen and take the desperately needed action?
Today, we bring you shocking news from the East of England Ambulance Service, a straightforward story that is almost beyond belief.
Desperately ill patients are being ferried to hospital in taxis. This is not people just being taken for routine check-ups, or outpatient appointments. These are category one incidents.
That’s life-saving intervention. That’s resuscitation. Hundreds suffering heart attacks, strokes, severe burns are not being taken by ambulance. They’re being bundled into the back of a cab. It is almost unthinkable – almost.
But we’ve seen it coming.
Ambulances backed up for hours outside busy A&Es, waiting for patients to be seen. There’s a lack of available ambulances, of course. But the problem is wider than that.
Paramedics are leaving the NHS all the time. There’s a staffing emergency. One told us some colleagues were quitting to stack shelves.
The pay, the conditions, the stress of the job, were all too much. This can’t be allowed to continue.
As the Government prepares to negotiate with the unions, it should head into talks with an open mind. Be prepared to listen to what the front line is telling them: They are at breaking point. They need things to change. Patients deserve the proper care.
Our beloved NHS – the pride and joy of the country – needs to be looked after properly. And so does everyone who works in it.
Grenfell insult
Seventy-two people lost their lives in the Grenfell fire disaster of 2017.
Today, we reveal that seven years before the blaze, it was known that the cladding on the tower was deadly.
Senior figures at the cladding company knew the risk. But they pushed the sales of their dangerous product, putting profits before lives.
One survivor told of her anger and her grief over the lives destroyed. She said she could not believe the firms had behaved like this.
But we can. In a climate where business is allowed to pursue profit over people’s safety, tragedies like Grenfell are always a risk.
