SINCE the new vear heean. health ministers. backed up by highly dubious figures from the Chief Medical Officer, had been trying to claim that there was an "epidemic" of flu, and "exceptional" pressure on hospital beds.
On closer examination. the CMO's claim of an epidemic rested on figures which showed the incidence of tlu in England as a whole to be well below conventonal cordemic levels drops were sucH assons a Bonic without telling their doctors!
On that basis, government could claim any reluctantly abandoned, intensive care nurses and consultants questionca tae existence or the claimed 100 extra intensive care unit beds which ministers kept insisting had been provided this winter: it turned out that no more than 30 have actually opened for the 6-month peak period.
Under these pressures and a barrage of hosile Tory press and media coverage listing the ancellation of urgent and waiting list operaLabour's health policies were publicisca arter his interview with the New Statesman.
Damning
As a close friend of Tony Blair and a As this effort to massage the figures was & rant, Winston's comments were seen as the resnected anour. supporting IV consulmost damning evidence so far of the disillusion ot many health workers with a government that has maintained the Tory squeeze As the week the hated and bureaucratic "internal market"
A desperate fire-fighting intervention by Alistair Campbell strong-armed Winston into a feeble retraction of many of his com ments, only to trigger more statements from other consultants echoing his original views and condemning him for back pedalling.
came to an end the Independent on Sunday claimed that the lons awaited report of the wagonal beas baguly set up by Frank Dobson in 1998 - and due for publication last vear - was being suppressed by ministers embarrassed at its findings.
It is also clear that ministers have blocked tne routine puoncaton or lures saowns the numbers of available beds and numbers of patients treated in English hospitals -### Morale cope while treating patients on trolleys in corridors for in the cise of Northwick Park Hospital recently, in a van in the carpark) for lack of beds is not improved by complacent sis" and that the NHS is "coping magnifi These efforts by ministers and by Millbank's spinners are failing either to stem the tide of hostile press corcrase or to resolve the underlying problems confronting the NES. After being systematically starved of the ately needs a hefty cash injection.
Outlook