Full Story in The Independent 16 March 2018
“Heroic” NHS staff weathered the worst winter on record as official figures reveal patient waiting times, bed shortages and ambulance queues hit unprecedented levels.
The statistics fly in the face of Prime Minister Theresa May’s claim that the NHS “was better prepared for winter than ever before” and experts say last-minute funding injections can no longer keep services running in the face of years of austerity.
The final winter analysis, compiled by Labour and verified by the House of Commons Library, takes in every year of available weekly data published by NHS England back to 2011-2012.
It reveals patient care suffered on an unprecedented scale and comes in the same week that academics called for a review after a shocking jump in the death rates this winter, with 10,000 additional deaths in the first seven weeks of 2018.