NHS staff regularly working for free – with some doing more than 11 hours extra unpaid every week – explains why the health service was unfit before the virus.
It was operating with tired nurses, doctors and other key employees whose dedication has been taken for granted by successive Tory governments, who imposed dangerous financial straitjackets on the health service.
The collective total of more than two million additional hours weekly is a result of understaffing when workloads were rising to treat record numbers of patients.
And that figure is likely to have climbed as the coronavirus crisis placed terrifying burdens on frontline workers.
Instead of clapping NHS heroes in front of the TV cameras, let Boris Johnson fill empty vacancies and pay them what they’re worth.
We applaud the grafters but the stress of working longer every week takes a toll and is why some highly skilled workers quit.
The NHS must become a healthy employer.
