When doctors say they are struggling to give patients the care they need, we should all pay attention. More than four in ten GPs say this happens at least once a week. Among them, the figure rises to a deeply worrying 60 per cent.
Relentless pressure on medics
These are not medics who have suddenly lost their dedication. They are professionals being asked to work under relentless pressure in a health service still stretched by staff shortages, rising demand and exhausting workloads.
The consequences are felt on both sides of the consulting-room door. Patients wait longer, doctors burn out and more experienced staff begin to wonder whether they can carry on.
Doctors considering leaving
The fact that more than one in five doctors are now considering leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement should alarm ministers. Britain cannot build a stronger NHS while the people expected to deliver it are being pushed towards the exit.
Doctors need the time, staff and support to do what they entered medicine to do: care properly for patients.
Time to adapt to heatwaves
Britain's latest heatwave is becoming a warning about how vulnerable the country is to a changing climate. The power grid is under pressure. Trains are being cancelled. Firefighters are battling wildfires, reservoirs are shrinking, and 45 million people are living in drought-hit areas.
Tomorrow could bring 38C temperatures and a rise in heat-related deaths. Each problem can be explained away on its own. Taken together, they paint a far more troubling picture of a nation whose infrastructure was built for a climate that is disappearing.
Extreme heat is no longer an occasional inconvenience. It is testing our railways, energy supplies, water reserves and emergency services at the same time. Britain must adapt faster, because summers like this are becoming harder to dismiss as exceptional. Each of us must play a part.
Eclipse unites the nation
For a few minutes, the country stopped and looked up. Streets fell quiet while families and friends gathered outside as the solar eclipse shrouded the nation in darkness. In a country too often pulled apart by division, millions shared the same breathtaking sight together. For once, we were all looking the same way.
