The NHS needs to be placed on a waiting list for change, My prescription is that we start again, says Mark Dolan

The doctor won't see you now.

Patients made 4.7million trips to A&E because they couldn't get advice or treatment from their GP, according to the UK’s health watchdog the Care Quality Commission.

What a disastrous consequence of our national health service becoming a national Covid service and effectively going on strike for two years. I for one will never forget disgraceful images of GP surgeries literally bolted shut and photographs inside of empty waiting rooms.

Just as the pathetic Church of England under the leadership of Justin Welby closed its doors to worshippers during the pandemic, our national health service literally turned away the sick.

That’s what I call unchristian. So here we are, with a waiting list of 6 million people, which some fear will hit 12 million, all because of a bonkers policy of pursuing zero Covid in healthcare settings, a disastrous and dangerous waste of time.

The virus was everywhere and tore through every hospital. The futile attempt by the national health service to control Covid saw anaesthetists, surgeons and nurses sat at home twiddling their thumbs, because they’d been in contact with someone that tested positive for Covid.

Go figure. You work in a hospital. For two years symptom free healthcare workers spent weeks at home self isolating, baking banana bread, watching Netflix and having zoom wine tastings, as Rome burned.

The economic bill for lockdowns is now coming through in the cost of living crisis, which is in fact the cost of lockdown crisis. But the even more tragic health bill is heading our way.

The NHS’s cultural obsession with Covid, which continues with the enforcement of worthless masks in hospitals and clinics, has likely cost many more lives than it has saved. And let's talk about whose lives are actually more important.

Does a clinically vulnerable 88 year old with weeks or months to live have equal billing with a 30-year-old mother of two, with the rest of her life ahead of her, who didn't get that lump in her breast checked, because she couldn't get an appointment and must now say goodbye to her family.

Doctors have always made tough decisions in terms of prioritising treatment. But all of that went out of the window during this pandemic.

The number of people that told me via email on this show and previously on my radio programme, that if it's not Covid, they don't care. And the Covid zealots in the NHS, high-profile doctors with half a million followers on Twitter are calling for more investment in the NHS, except that it's the policies they pushed for which smashed the economy, which means the cupboard is now bare.

Thousands of people are now going private, even though they can't afford it because they've been told they've got to wait years for a hip placement, and other essential treatment, that the NHS calls not urgent. If it's causing you pain, if it's affecting your quality of life or your ability to work, it is urgent.

Plus, we pay our taxes. In fact more now than we have since the 1950s. So it's time for the NHS to raise its game, and give the British public a bit more bang for our buck. GPs should be working seven days a week, on their fat salaries, to see patients face-to-face.

Hospitals and other medical settings need to get back to normal, reach full capacity and get over the fact that COVID-19 cannot and will not be controlled.

Virus gonna virus. And what's the problem with omicron, a variant milder than a night on the tiles with Mary Berry. She loves getting baked. And NHS, want to have their cake and eat it. Unprecedented spending, but a service that just doesn't match up.

Britain deserves a better health service and as far as I'm concerned, all bets are off in how we achieve that. Free healthcare for all at the point of need is an absolute dealbreaker, a red line for me. You don't want to be at the scene of an accident, or halfway through a coronary incident and be asked for your credit card.

Absolutely. America's health care system is an absolute disaster, costing US taxpayers twice the money, for a service half as good. But the NHS itself is now on life support. And in need of urgent resuscitation. And if bringing in vast amounts of private expertise to save lives and improve lives, then so be it. I'm happy to debate the way forward for our national health service – it’s time for a national conversation – but plot spoiler, I suspect endless money is not the answer.

One thing is clear - keeping things as they are, is not an option. Let's not forget, that this health service which is now under so much staffing pressure was happy to see thousands of doctors, nurses and care workers fired for not having a vaccine. And the NHS, has become the national ill-health service, managing preventable lifestyle conditions like Type II diabetes and obesity rather than tacking them.

They say they have schemes, but it’s not working. We are fatter than ever. Joint problems, dementia, heart disease, cancer and depression are all linked to obesity, which the NHS is happy to spend billions expensively managing. Mark my words, obesity will eventually bankrupt the NHS, if we don’t deal with it. Now the people in the NHS, the frontline nurses, doctors, porters and cleaners are the very best in the business.

Expertise, commitment and what they've been through over the last two years has been close to hell. We will never thank them enough. But as a wider organisation, the NHS is on its deathbed. It's a scandal that people are borrowing money, taking out loans and using their credit cards to get health treatment privately, for which they have already have paid via their taxes.

The pandemic has been transformative in many ways. Society will never be the same. And I've noticed that goodwill towards national health service is now in short supply. Abuse is completely unacceptable, of course, but anger and frustration is understandable.

And I think the health service has only brought this on itself.

I fear the NHS, will become a bit like the BBC. A public organisation you're forced to pay for, but which millions don't actually use.

The NHS needs to be placed on a waiting list for change.

My prescription is that we rethink the whole model and start again. If the NHS doesn’t choose change, change will be forced upon it. Our health service is on life support.

Carry on doctor, isn’t an option.