'Three decades as a doctor - patients dying, succumbing to Covid and the unfolding NHS crisis has made me ill'

David Oliver is an experienced NHS consultant physician and medical writer from Manchester.

Now working in the South East, he has looked after Covid wards and patients for many months over the past two years. He also writes a weekly column in the British Medical Journal.

Here he shares his perspective with the Manchester Evening News - revealing that after more than two years working at the centre of the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by the current crisis of unprecedented demand on a hamstrung system, he has had to be signed off work sick.