It is time for the government to face up to reality on the strikes

Editorial: It will probably lose the strike eventually, because the public recognise that the NHS needs to compete with the private sector for staff

24 December 2022 (Dave Brown)

So inured is the population to what might be termed the permacrisis in the NHS that the stark reality of what is taking place in our hospitals and clinics is being occluded. Where once a single ambulance taking hours to arrive for someone with a serious, albeit non-life-threatening, injury would be the stuff of headlines, today a wait of many hours at home followed by hours more in A&E feels almost normal.

So poor has the service been, and for so long – and so acquainted are we with absurdly long waiting times – that this dire state of affairs no longer alarms us. The strikes by the ambulance drivers and the nurses, who have deliberately stopped short of refusing to treat “life and limb” emergencies, seem scarcely to have made matters worse.

The NHS crisis may still be topping the news agenda, but the debates are political and about money. The nurses are upping their action, while ambulance crews are postponing theirs, but the troubles drag on – and with no end in sight.