Stan Solomons is a WW2 veteran. He trained with codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the once top-secret base of the Government Code and Cypher School.
He served his country in the RAF as a young man, and even worked at a listening post in Hong Kong, close to the frontier with Communist China.
He is 95 now, and this week was rushed to Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, for emergency treatment.
But the NHS is buckling, and with no beds available, Stan was left in a hospital corridor for a shocking 26hours. On Wednesday, his story made the front page of the Mirror.
I first spoke to Stan over Christmas 2019, when he had been left on a trolley at A&E at Leicester Royal Infirmary – part of the same Hospital Trust – for 12 hours.
That length of time seemed scandalous then.
In 2022, it says everything about the state of the health service that his wait was twice as long.
“Last time I was on a trolley in A&E, but this time I was in a corridor and for much longer,” Stan told me yesterday. “I was very poorly and out of it for much of the time so don’t remember a great deal, but it seems that the pressures on the NHS are getting worse all the time.”
His family say one of the hospital cleaners was even helping out with patients in the corridor.
“We’ve had 12 years of cuts to the NHS, and the care system, and look where this has got us,” Stan says.
“The Blair government reversed the damage the Thatcher government had done and reduced waiting times, but the Conservatives have undone this investment.
“Too many people are waiting too long for treatment as it is. We need more investment, not more cuts. Good health is invaluable.”
He says nurses and doctors like those who cared for him with kindness despite overstretched conditions deserve a pay rise.
“The difficult work NHS staff do should be recognised with a decent wage and the systems needed to allow them to do their job,” the RAF veteran says. “We all need a well-funded NHS and care system.”
Stan’s experience tells the very human story of the exponential rise in trolley waits – the time between a decision to admit and a patient being admitted to a ward – over the past three years.
Last time I wrote about Stan’s plight, the number of trolley waits of more than 12 hours had exceeded 2,347. Then, the highest monthly figure on record.
Last month, trolley waits of over 12hours had increased by almost 30,000 – with 32,776 people waiting.
A record collapse in emergency care, and a shocking illustration of how much strain the NHS is now under as 12 brutal years of Tory austerity, a pandemic and pay restraint take their toll.
As with the cost-of-living crisis, the situation would be an emergency were there a functioning government rather than one trapped in its own death spiral.
Stan was born in the East End of London in 1927, before the NHS was founded. In the 1920s, families could take out insurance that granted access to a doctor from the local “panel” when needed, but usually didn’t stretch as far as hospital treatment.
“We lived in the East End, and I remember that we were on the doctor’s ‘panel’ and had to pay a regular subscription, and pay for medicines,” he says.
“There were lots of childhood diseases about that you don’t see nowadays, and any illness could have serious consequences, so it was a relief when the NHS was set up and took away the worry.
“Life expectancy was much lower, there weren’t many people who lived into their 70s let alone into their 90s.”
Stan was initially evacuated during WW2 but returned to live through the Blitz – the V1 doodlebugs and the V2 rockets. His family were literally bombed out of their home. He joined the RAF in 1945 and trained at Bletchley.
After his conscription ended, he was sent to university by the RAF with the understanding that after he got his degree he would rejoin.
It was during his second period in the RAF that he was posted to Hong Kong. He was still attached to Bletchley when at the ‘listening post’.
He has had an incredible life, eventually becoming a teacher of modern languages, studying for a PhD in education and statistics after retiring, and married for 60 years to Bette, with whom he had two children and two grandchildren.
Now, having survived the worst of the Covid pandemic, like many people in their 90s, he needs the support of the NHS.
Nottingham University Hospitals (which runs both the QMC and City Hospital) declared a critical incident last month. It said emergency demand for care and the challenge of discharging patients was leading to “high numbers of patients waiting in the hospitals”.
The incident has now been stood down.
NUH Chief Operating Officer Lisa Kelly “sincerely apologised” to Stan and his family. Thankfully, Stan says he is feeling much better.
“The antibiotics seem to be working but the doctors want to keep an eye on me,” he says. “I’m grateful for everyone who has looked after me.
“At my age something like this takes it out of you,” he adds, with characteristic understatement.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson says that “no one should have to wait longer than necessary for emergency care.”
“Our Plan For Patients sets out a range of measures to help ease pressures, including an extra £500million to speed up discharge and free up hospital beds, reducing waits in A&E and getting ambulances quickly back out on the road,” they added.
But, as of yesterday, no one even has any idea who the new Secretary of State for Health – or even the Prime Minister – will be.
Let alone their plan to keep Stan and millions of others safe.
