The NHS is in critical condition – but with the right care, it can make a recovery

The Covid-19 pandemic added to the disaster, hitting a health service less resilient and with fewer beds than similar countries. How patient will the nation’s patients be as they wait for discernible improvement? That is the most important task of this report: to explain why it will take many years for the NHS to return to the waiting times of 2010. It acts as an invaluable benchmark, the starting point from which to judge progress year by year.