“So what we’re facing at the moment is we’re facing immediate, short, medium and long term problems in terms of health.”

“Our immediate problem has been demonstrated by the mayor’s announcement today as the cases of coronavirus rise in hospital. The short term issue is getting vaccines sorted. Medium term, we have a large amount of planned care. There are people who are unwell with non-covid issues, who are sat at home, who are not having their operations and not having their planned care. They will need to be treated in addition to people who will continue to develop other conditions.”

“Longer term, we will have ever increasing waiting lists, we have mental health issues already stacking up. And these are problems that are also going to affect the NHS. So we need strategies to deal with this.”