[oliwarner]

Covid it's a red herring. As is the attention given to long ambulance queues, overrun A&Es. This isn't a front door admissions problem.

What we're seeing is a long and accelerating dissolution of social care in the community, mostly elderly nursing but also mental health.

Most hospitals are at least 40% occupied by patients awaiting discharge but who can't be discharged because there isn't a nursing home space, or enough community nursing to support them at home. They stay in hospital.

This blocks admissions. Which blocks ambulance transfer. Hospitals give surgical beds over to ease waits but this only makes things worse. Now people aren't getting surgical treatment, and it's more likely they'll end up coming in for the symptoms.

Covid made things worse, mainly by treating nursing staff horribly, but this was already a trend. We urgently need to pay nurses more, and desperately train a hundred thousand more. Neither look likely under this government.