The NHS is not living with covid, it’s dying from it - HSJ and BMJ joint editorial (18 July 2022)

Summary

Today may be the most difficult day the NHS has ever experienced. The headlines will focus on the pressures created by the heatwave and that most visible sign of healthcare failure – ambulances queuing outside hospitals. But, as we know all too well, this brutal situation is the culmination of many factors, which include but are not limited to prolonged periods of underfunding in the past decade, lack of an adequate workforce plan, and a cowardly and short-sighted failure to undertake social care reform, writes Dr Kamran Abbasi, editor of the BMJ, and HSJ editor, Alastair McLellan, in this joint editorial.