As two Welsh health trusts struggle to cope with the latest influx of coronavirus patients, Mark Drakeford, the first minister, said the NHS in Wales was becoming the National Covid service, crowding out other patients.
Health minister Vaughan Gething describes the situation as “incredibly serious’.
The Aneurin Bevan health board reports that their hospital is ‘struggling to cope, stuffed full with coronavirus patients”, resulting in all outpatients and most other services being halted. Ambulances were queuing outside.
The scene in Wales is repeated, on a much larger scale in England.
The NHS says that even last year there were 4.6 million waiting to start treatment for other illnesses.
The Royal College Of Surgeons reports that in the NHS more than 36,000 are waiting longer than six months, 30 percent up on last year.
There was a brief improvement in reducing hospital backlogs this summer but the second wave slowed down the progress.
Cancer Research UK reports that between two and four million are waiting for scanning or treatment
This confirms the fear that, in addition to over 64,000 deaths in the UK so far, the pandemic has cost the lives of many thousands who could not have treatment or operations.
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