Steve Barclay, Minister responsible for the lack of Health and Social Care, stated that elderly people who fall or have an accident would probably have to get to hospital on their own.

So imagine a pensioner who has fallen and sustained a broken bone, and is lying immobile on a frozen or wet street in freezing weather The NHS web site says that people with such breaks should not be moved until they have been seen by a qualified medic. So how does Barclay imagine the injured person would get to treatment ?

Worse still, even before the current round of strikes, senior board members from various NHS Trusts have said that the public should not call 999 unless an accident is life threatening.

So, if that edict were followed, as the injury outlined above could not be classed as life threatening until hypothermia sets into the victim at about 03:00 in the morning, they or a passer by should not call 999. There is no other conclusion from the statements issued by the government and the NHS.

Maybe the person could call their GP on their mobile ? No, as a receptionist would tell them that (a) all the days appointments had gone, and that they should call at 08:00 next morning but anyway (b) they do not have the capability of dealing with fractures anyway, so go to A+E.

This is truly surreal circular madness, and the hapless Barclay must know this as he issued words that the only logical conclusion from following them verbatim would be that Granny would be left to die in the street. But, heh ho, it’s a sacrifice worth making to bash the unions with.

This is what the NHS has become. In 1948, the then new NHS took over 480,000 beds. It is now around 160,000 with a much larger population, and the UK has one of the very worst ratios of beds per capita of any European county. The next time Grumpy hears one of these reality blind and deaf politicians utter words about ’40 new hospitals’ and ‘World Class’ he will not be able to restrain himself from banging his head against a wall. Sadly, he would be unable to get any treatment from the resulting injury.