Déjà lu is a symptom that affects all Spectator subscribers after a while: the feeling that, when reading the newspapers, that you have read the story before. Long before. Four months ago, The Spectator ran a cover story about a crisis that hadn’t then hit the news: the meltdown in our ambulance service. Mary Wakefield’s investigation revealed how paramedics were leaving in droves and that ambulance chiefs were being forced into ever-more-desperate measures to try to replace them.
The scandal has since hit the newspapers, in many instalments. Today, newspapers now report that they are recruiting from Poland. A spokesman for South Central Ambulance Service is quoted as saying:-
“We have been carrying out some international recruitment in Poland for paramedics where their qualifications, skills and experience are very similar to our own and meet our own high standards for staff.”
I’m not quite sure why this would cause uproar: he’s dead right.
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