Rachel Clarke is spot-on in debunking the myth propagated by Boris Johnson that the NHS was not overwhelmed by Covid (The claim that the NHS ‘coped’ with Covid is not true – it’s drowning and damaged, 23 March). A complete collapse of the NHS was only prevented by policies that included discharging older people untested back to care homes and refusing to admit some of them with severe Covid symptoms. Present deaths from Covid are well below the peaks of earlier waves, but how many people have died and are still dying prematurely through delayed diagnosis and treatment?
Freedom day last July has led to health services, including hospitals, being clogged up with Covid patients, hampering the efforts to deal with the massive backlog. But our prime minister has already moved on and consigned to history the many thousands of needless deaths that his policies contributed to.
Ron Walton
Penarth, Glamorgan
