When the Prince and Princess of Wales visit the Royal Liverpool Hospital today, they probably won't spend much time in the facility's crisis-hit Accident and Emergency department.
William and Kate will undoubtedly be taken around one of the new hospital's shiny new wards and observe some of the state-of-the-art technology now being used, they will of course thank staff for their tireless efforts during this all consuming and exhausting NHS crisis.
I don't necessarily have an issue with that. It would probably be unhelpful to overwhelmed emergency department staff to have the royal couple and their teams visiting at this most difficult of moments.
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The reports and images we have run of emergency rooms in the Royal and other local hospitals in recent weeks have been disturbing and distressing. Pictures of people lying in pain on waiting room floors, ambulances queueing outside hospitals and stories of elderly people asking to be allowed to die during interminable waits on busy corridors have rightly caused shock and anger across Merseyside and beyond.
The new Royal was finally able to open its doors to the public in October - a mere five years after its original planned launch date. The city's badly-needed new facility was continually held up by a ludicrous range of issues including the dramatic collapse of its main contractor Carillion. It is finally open and that is a good thing.
But the city's new hospital has opened at a time when the NHS is facing its biggest ever crisis. A number of doctors working inside the new hospital also believe the new building is not helping what is a national crisis. A number of them recently wrote to Trust bosses to robustly question the decision to move to a new facility that ultimately has fewer beds than its predecessor.
Of course decisions around hospitals and health crises are not in the remit of the Royal Family. They are not policy makers and have not taken decisions over funding or management of the NHS to lead it to this point. Prince William and Kate Middleton will meet and thank healthcare staff working in the hospital today for their herculean efforts during the pandemic and the current unfolding crisis - for some this will be warmly welcomed.
But what the visit should not do is distract from the reality of what our hospitals and those working in or being treated in them are facing. Once the Prince and Princess leave the Royal and leave Liverpool, those same problems will remain.
Corridors will still be full of sick and vulnerable patients, ambulances will still be stuck in queues outside hospitals, doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals will still feel desperate, angry and bewildered. It goes without saying that a few well choreographed pictures of some very famous people meeting staff won't make those myriad issues go away.
Of course the people that those working in war-zone emergency rooms really want to hear from are those with the actual power to change things. Countless healthcare workers have told me they would like Health Secretary Steve Barclay or Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to shadow them for just one day to see exactly what they are up against and why urgent action from Whitehall is needed.
Today's visit is unlikely to bring about any such change, but we and others will continue to highlight the catastrophe consuming our precious National Health Service long after members of the Royal Family have headed out of the city.
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