We’re back in the eye of the storm, said NHS Chief Executive Sir Simon Stevens. Yes we are. He made no admission of how we got into this storm, nor explained how we’re going to get out of it. His Five Year Plan for the NHS lying in tatters, his most decisive contribution to the COVID-19 crisis was to simply farm off NHS patient care wholesale to the private sector – essentially, using UK taxes to keep the entire private healthcare sector afloat during the height of the crisis. Sir Simon described it as an “exceptional deal” even though many private hospitals were paid to stay open while empty – exceptional indeed!

“By late Spring,” he continued, “we hope to have offered vaccinations to all vulnerable people”. Yes Simon, but winter has just started, and there’s every possibility that this pandemic wave may finally breach NHS surge capacity.

NHS England’s board of directors has become increasingly unaccountable since the Health and Social Care Act, and almost invisible during this pandemic – there has been a crisis of leadership.

The healthcare establishment have been largely self-serving and ineffective in representing the interests of either healthcare workers or patients whenever NHSE has made bad decisions.

The heroes of this latest pandemic surge will undoubtedly be the newly emerging NHS leaders who are fighting for the survival of their patients and have nothing to lose.

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