NHS crisis: Politicians are not offering a comprehensive solution on how to fix the health service
The NHS is in the worst crisis in its 75 years, say health experts.
And you only had to listen to the heart-wrenching stories of the audience during a live Sky News programme on the NHS at Coventry Hospital for the reality of that to be laid bare.
There was James, whose wife died after waiting too long for an ambulance – and Sarah, whose mum died from an infection in hospital after waiting too long to be discharged into community care.
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‘NHS can survive if people fight for it’
Stories that provoked gasps of horror and expressions of distress from the audience, as those around them recounted how they lost loved ones in a health system on its knees.
And as the stories of failings were shared, the obvious question that followed was whether the NHS can survive in its current form, or if it needs a radical rethink.
This is of course an intensely political question, given that it is governments that decide how much investment should be put into the health system, sort out the infrastructure, and decide how it should be organised.
There is a growing discussion in Westminster about how the NHS should be funded, with the former health secretary Sajid Javid telling me last year that he doesn’t believe the NHS can survive and the country needs an “honest conversation” about how we pay for healthcare.
He thinks the UK should look to European neighbours that have a mix of private insurance and state provision, where patients pay some money for services. He recently said those who can afford it should also pay to see a GP.
But this wasn’t a view shared by our audience, with many shaking their heads when I reflected some of the political discussion back in Westminster around the future of the NHS.
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Sir Rod Stewart calls Sky News
As Phil Brown, a retired children’s nurse, said: “As Nye Bevan [the founder of the NHS] put it, the NHS will survive for as long as there are people even now who are prepared to fight for it.
“Give back an elective nurses council, take away the parking charges, give us a four-day week, we will graft… and watch what all NHS staff can do.”
The audience reflected wider public sentiment, according to Hugh Alderwick, director of policy at the Health Foundation.
“Polling shows strong support for the core principles of the NHS, including it being free at the point of use, available to all and predominantly funded through tax,” he said. “The public want a better health service, rather than a different system and they back additional spending to supply it, with 71% thinking greater government investment in the NHS is necessary.”
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Can the NHS survive?
But if the audience seemed to agree with the principle of an NHS free at the point of use and funded through taxation, the politicians are not offering comprehensive solutions to how to end a crisis that was beginning long before the COVID pandemic.
Chronic staff shortages, the need for more investment, a plan to fix adult social care and weak capital investment in buildings, equipment and IT, are some of the big problems facing the NHS but our politicians tend to deal in sticking plasters not real solutions.
The most obvious example being the ditching of Boris Johnson’s £12bn-a-year plan to better fund the NHS and social care through a National Insurance tax rise and a cap on individual care costs to protect the elderly from exorbitant costs.
That successive government inaction now hitting home with ambulance delays, bed blocking and high levels of unmet needs.
But on both sides of the political divide, parties are for now unwilling to grasp the nettle.
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‘NHS Crisis: Your Say’ Highlights
The Conservatives have delayed social care reform until after the next general election. They have promised a plan on improving emergency care, access and workforce to deal with acute staffing shortages, but there is a private admission within government that it is unlikely that patients will feel much improvement in services before an election and there is certainly no talk of increased investment.
Labour too is unwilling to commit to more funding, anxious that they open up a line of attack from the Conservatives if it commits to spending plans for the NHS.
As deputy leader Angela Rayner put it to me in a recent interview, Labour will focus on reforming the NHS – a big push on changing the way GP surgeries work and increasing preventative medicine – rather than raising taxes to pay for it.
The “retail offer” from Labour is to pay for more doctors and nurses by scrapping non-dom tax status and funnelling the estimated £3.2bn that will raise into extra training places.
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An NHS hospital under pressure
Lord Winston, the IVF pioneer who has worked in the NHS for nearly six decades, told me last week he had never seen it so bad and said he believed more funding would be inevitable. He urged Sir Keir Starmer to show more “courage” when it came to resolving the problems of the NHS.
With an election less than two years away, political leaders are for now playing it safe with difficult decisions delayed. But what was clear from our discussion is that voters want the NHS to survive in its current form. And they will expect their political leaders to deliver it.
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Russia – as the US president called on Moscow to “get moving” with ending the war in Ukraine.
Mr Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, visited Mr Putin in St Petersburg after earlier meeting the Russian leader’s international co-operation envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
Mr Putin was shown on state TV greeting Mr Witkoff at the city’s presidential library at the start of the latest discussions about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine.
Before Friday’s meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down expectations of a breakthrough and told state media the visit would not be “momentous”.
Follow the latest updates on the war in Ukraine
However, Sky News Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett said he believes the meeting – Mr Witkoff’s third with Mr Putin this year – is significant as a sign of the Trump administration’s “increasing frustration at the lack of progress on peace talks”.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump issued his latest social media statement on trying to end the war, writing on Truth Social: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!”
Dialogue between the US and Russia, aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war, has recently appeared to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause.
Mr Trump, pictured at a cabinet meeting at the White House earlier this week, has called for Russia to ‘get moving’. Pic: AP
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Secondary sanctions could be imposed on countries that buy Russian oil, Mr Trump has said, if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a deal.
Mr Putin has said he is ready in principle to agree a full ceasefire, but argues crucial conditions have yet to be agreed – and that what he calls the root causes of the war have yet to be addressed.
The Russian president wants to dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and has demanded Kyiv recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and other partly occupied areas, and pull its forces out, as well as a pledge for Ukraine to never join NATO and for the size of its army to be limited.
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Children killed in strike on Zelenskyy’s home town
Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his appeals for more Patriot air defence systems after the deaths of 20 people, including nine children, who were killed when a Russian missile hit apartment buildings and a playground in his home city of Kryvyi Rih last week.
Speaking online at a meeting of the so-called Ramstein group of about 50 nations that provide military support to Ukraine, named after a previous meeting at America’s Ramstein air base in Germany in 2022, Mr Zelenskyy said recent Russian attacks showed Moscow was not ready to accept and implement any realistic and effective peace proposals.
Mr Zelenskyy also made his evening address to the nation, saying: “Ukraine is not just asking – we are ready to buy appropriate additional systems.”
The UK’s defence secretary, John Healy, has said this is “the critical year” for Ukraine – and has confirmed £450m in funding for a military support package.
A family of five Spanish tourists, including three children, have been killed in a helicopter crash in New York City.
A New York City Hall spokesman identified two of those killed as Agustin Escobar, a Siemens executive, and Merce Camprubi Montal – believed to be his wife, NBC News reported.
The pilot was also killed as the aircraft crashed into the Hudson River at around 3.17pm on Thursday.
New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said divers had recovered all those on board from the helicopter, which was upside down in the water.
“Four victims were pronounced dead on scene and two more were removed to local area hospitals, where sadly both succumbed to their injuries,” she said.
The helicopter was submerged upside down in the Hudson. Pic: Reuters
A crane lifted out the wreckage on Thursday evening. Pic: AP
The Spanish president Pedro Sanchez called the news “devastating”.
“An unimaginable tragedy. I share the grief of the victims’ loved ones at this heartbreaking time,” he wrote on X.
Rotor blade ‘flew off’
The aircraft was on a tourist flight of Manhattan, run by the New York Helicopters company.
Witnesses described seeing the main rotor blade flying off moments before it dropped out the sky.
Agustin Escobar and Merce Camprubi Montal.
Pic: Facebook
Lesly Camacho, a worker at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, said she saw the helicopter spinning uncontrollably before it slammed into the water.
“There was a bunch of smoke coming out. It was spinning pretty fast, and it landed in the water really hard,” she said.
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Witness saw ‘parts flying off’ helicopter
Another witness said “the chopper blade flew off”.
“I don’t know what happened to the tail, but it just straight up dropped,” Avi Rakesh told Sky’s US partner, NBC News.
Video on social media showed parts of the Bell 206 helicopter tumbling through the air and landing in the river.
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New York mayor confirms six dead
The crash happened near Pier 40. Pic: AP
New York Mayor Eric Adams confirmed the six deaths and said authorities believed the tourists were from Spain.
He said the flight had taken off from a downtown heliport at around 3pm.
Pic: Cover Images/AP
The crash happened close to Pier 40 and the Holland tunnel, which links lower Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood with Jersey City to its west.
Tracking service Flight Radar 24 published what it said was the helicopter’s route, with the aircraft appearing to be in the sky for 15 minutes before the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have started an investigation.
Agustin Escobar.
Pic: Europa Press/AP
Thursday’s incident comes less than three month after 67 people died when an army helicopter and American Airlines jet collided over the Potomac River in Washington DC.
A former ballerina who spent more than a year in a Russian jail for donating £40 to a charity supporting Ukraine has returned home to the US after being freed in a prisoner exchange.
Ksenia Karelina landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 11pm, local time, on Thursday.
A smiling Ms Karelina was greeted on the runway by her fiance, the professional boxer Chris van Heerden, and given flowers by Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East.
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Ksenia Karelina arrives at Joint Base Andrews. Pic: AP
Van Heerden said in a statement he was “overjoyed to hear that the love of my life, Ksenia Karelina, is on her way home from wrongful detention in Russia.
“She has endured a nightmare for 15 months and I cannot wait to hold her. Our dog, Boots, is also eagerly awaiting her return.”
He thanked Mr Trump and his envoys, as well as prominent public figures who had championed her case, including Dana White, a friend of Mr Trump and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Ms Karelina, 34, a US-Russian citizen also identified as Ksenia Khavana, was accused of treason when she was arrested in Yekaterinburg, in southwestern Russia, while visiting family in February last year.
Investigators searched her mobile phone and found she made a $51.80 (£40) donation to Razom, a charity that provides aid to Ukraine, on the first day of Russia’s invasion in 2022.
She admitted the charge at a closed trial in the city in August last year and was later jailed for 12 years, to be served in a penal colony.
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr Trump, who wants to normalise relations with Moscow, said the Kremlin “released the young ballerina and she is now out, and that was good. So we appreciate that”.
Ksenia Karelina is hugged by her boyfriend, Chris van Heerden. Pic: Reuters
He said the release followed conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian security services accused her of “proactively” collecting money for a Ukrainian organisation that was supplying gear to Kyiv’s forces.
The First Department, a Russian rights group, said the charges stemmed from a $51.80 donation to a US charity aiding Ukraine.
Washington, which had called her case “absolutely ludicrous”, released Arthur Petrov, who it was holding on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia, in the prisoner swap in Abu Dhabi.
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Karelina was among a growing number of Americans arrested in Russia in recent years as tensions between Moscow and Washington spiked over the war in Ukraine.
Her release is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner exchanges Russia and the US carried out in the last three years – and the second since Mr Trump took office.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said members of the Trump administration “continue to work around the clock to ensure Americans detained abroad are returned home to their families”.
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