I have to meet with politicians in my NHS role from time to time. I visited the office of a local Tory MP (and cabinet minister for Johnson) once when plans for a brand new hospital were being discussed. He was very relaxed and supportive of it. A couple of years later, come the election the scheming populist tosser was campaigning on “saving” the knackered crumbling old hospital that was due to be replaced which was holding medical recruitment and infrastructure development back.

It’s a social care problem primarily because hospitals can’t discharge their medically fit geriatric patients out the back door -who need onward care packages. It causes a log jam in the system and ambulances can’t offload acute patients at the front door of hospitals, which takes them out of action, thus causing longer waits for people who need an ambulance. It’s been made much worse by a staffing crisis that the Govt has ignored and Covid lockdowns stored up health problems and has led to massive demand. It’s a perfect storm but the idea behind the NHS remains sound. Just needs a competent Govt to maintain it -and we don’t have that.