Responding to an emergency bleep during yet another hectic night shift last month, Jade Walker, an anaesthetist, arrived at a patient’s bedside to find his heart had stopped.
“He had been in the waiting room for eight hours before collapsing. If the waiting time had been less, and he’d been seen a few hours sooner, he’d probably have survived. I’ve been worried someone would die in A&E for months.”
Walker, 34, is one of many NHS staff up and down the country who are seeing the reality of a winter crisis worse than any that has come before. “I feel like the NHS is collapsing and the government is ignoring it,” she said. “People are dying because of delays. It’s not acceptable. I’m scared that it’ll be one of my relatives stuck waiting for an ambulance and unable to get the help they need.”
