The latest performance figures for the English Ambulance Trusts were released two weeks ago. For WMAS it is impressive how, despite the extreme difficulty of maintaining an emergency service, response times for Category 1 calls such as cardiac and respiratory arrest have remained almost unchanged compared to their best in 2019.
The first duty of a government is the security of its people. How many times have you heard that? It's usually to justify more spending on defence or harsher prison sentences. But why does it not apply to health care? This morning health minister Gillian Keegan gave an interview on the Today programme. Just before the interview we heard that seventeen hospitals in Greater Manchester were pausing routine work because of the Omicron crisis and it was likely that many other districts would have to follow suit. Later in the day that emergency ambulance calls with targets of 18 minutes were taking hours and, linked to this, heart attack patients were being advised to get themselves to hospital. Ms Keegan was stunning in her complacency. According to her this was almost normal winter behaviour, "We often slow down certain electives", she said. To which two questions, Why do we often have to slow down - could it be that our government has not taken care of the NHS, not just because of insufficient money, but also in
Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you had a great Christmas. I am so looking forward to 2022 - I hope it's the year we will finally beat Covid, that Liberal Democrats will keep beating the Conservatives as we did in two historic by-elections last year, and England will win the World Cup.
The out-of-date way MPs are elected to Westminster is failing voters
