Experts debate how to solve the ongoing NHS crisis

It is widely known additional pressures and longer waiting times have grown as NHS staff have experienced stresses like they never have before.To discuss how to heal these ongoing issues facing the National Health Service, The Independent gathered experts in their field for an online panel event hosted by our health correspondent Rebecca Thomas. Dr Alexis Paton, director at the Centre for Health and Society, Hannah Barham-Brown, a GP and also deputy leader of the Women’s Equality Party, and Sean O’Sullivan, Head of Health and Social Policy for the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), joined us to explain how they think the future of the NHS can be secured.The discussion, held on Zoom, ranged from how the Covid pandemic hit the NHS through to the likelihood of the NHS being privatised by the government in future years. The panelists were quick to reference the turning point we are currently at from a poitical perspective following a quick succession of different administrations and health secretraries with it. To watch the event in full see the recording below: Dr Barham-Brown said: ‘Politcians need to get out of the way. She added: ‘At the moment we are trying to offer champagne on a Lambrini budget and we are not even managing to get Chardonnay.’In terms of solutions, Dr Paton added: ‘We have reinvented the wheel with this so many times and what we need with this is a cross-party committment to say this is how we are going to deal with the NHS in a long term way.’ While Mr O’Sullivan added: ‘The good news is that the MP who probably tried to do more to change the health care bill to include the workforce planning than others was of course Jeremy Hunt, who is now the chancellor, so you would hope there would be a but more impotus towards that.’To watch other recordings in our virtual event series click here.