The ongoing NHS crisis has brutally exposed the inadequacies of our political system. The numbers are horrifying: hundreds of unnecessary excess deaths a week; average ambulance wait times of an hour and a half for patients having a stroke or even a possible heart attack; over 700,000 waits of more than four hours in A&E departments in December alone. The reasons are complex and multifaceted. But there is no doubt that a big part of the cause is long-term underinvestment in key parts of the system, particularly in buildings, IT systems and social care. A health service that was already deteriorating pre-pandemic has been knocked so badly that recovery will take years, even if we start doing the right things.