More than 4,000 ambulance patients were forced to wait over an hour outside A&E departments across Greater Manchester so far this winter.
The NHS in our region is hamstrung by strikes, a 'twindemic' of flu and Covid, collapsing social care and more emergency department attendances than ever before. Doctors say demand is far outstripping capacity - there simply are not enough pairs of hands or beds to cope with the onslaught of extremely ill patients.
Running alongside these day-to-day pressures, social care resources are spread so thinly that hundreds of medically fit patients ready for discharge cannot be sent home for 'weeks' at a time. There aren't not enough care home staff and home helpers to keep patients safe and monitor them when they leave hospital.
