Shropshire Star comment: NHS staff can hold their heads high
Ordinary members of the public know that things have been tough in our hospitals during the pandemic, but it is the testimony of those on the front line which really brings it home.
This has been an unceasing battle fought for a year now which in the most desperate and dark times has threatened to overwhelm the National Health Service, but never has, thanks to the resilience and flexibility of the institution and the tireless work of the staff.
Mark Brandreth, who is chief executive of the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital at Gobowen, has revealed some of the complexities and challenges facing a major trust like the Orthopaedic.
In January 150 staff were redeployed to help out at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital as the county was hit by the post-Christmas surge in Covid-19 cases.
Mr Brandreth himself left the helm at the Orthopaedic for a while to oversee the development of the seven Nightingale hospitals across the country. After this personal feather in his cap he returned last November, and staff are starting to return as coronavirus admissions fall.
As one crisis eases, he has highlighted the major challenge of getting to grips with the huge backlogs in the waiting lists.
Now staff are getting back together they must pick up the pieces and start catching up. So there is going to be no let up in the pressure on people in the NHS who are tired and weary after the extraordinary efforts over the past year, and whose reward is the prospect of a one per cent pay rise, which unsurprisingly Mr Brandreth says has been met with disappointment.
Any idea then that the success of the vaccine programme will allow the hospitals to return soon to "normality" is a mirage because more months of hard work lie ahead to get through a mountain of delayed cases.
And once that is done, it will merely be a return to that NHS "normality" of a service with a relentless workload and a feeling of being overstretched.
One thing the past year has done is create even greater levels of respect and appreciation among the public for the work that those in the NHS do – work which will continue unabated after Covid.
They can hold their heads high with enduring pride.
