Is the NHS ‘crisis’ too complex for politicians to solve?

Is the NHS in crisis, or isn’t it? Jeremy Hunt doesn’t want to use the word, telling the Today programme that ‘there’s a huge amount of pressure’, while Norman Lamb argued that ‘I wouldn’t describe it as a crisis’ but ‘I readily acknowledge that the system is under intense pressure’. Few politicians want to describe something they’re notionally responsible for as ‘in crisis’ (though Lamb isn’t afraid to use pretty strong language about some areas of his portfolio, including mental health). But whatever word they use, ministers know that things aren’t hunky dory in accident and emergency departments at the moment – and this hasn’t been a cold winter.

The problem for politicians, particularly those on the opposite side who want to say that this is the government’s crisis, is that the crisis has many causes. They often do, which is why they turn from spots of bother into crises, because people don’t realise that when spots of bother combine, they turn into a big ugly crisis that suddenly looks unmanageable.