2018 January 11

At Business Questions this week, following on from the Opposition day debate yesterday, I raised the NHS Winter Crisis. This year we have seen the NHS cancel operations and people left waiting on trolleys. The Care Quality Commission decided to suspend routine inspections because of the winter pressures. Today has seen an announcement by NHS providers that they cannot deliver, as set out under the NHS constitution, safe, decent standards of patient care. The Government say that the “NHS has never been better prepared for winter”, but that is not the reality in hospitals.