Page 94, the Private Eye podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.

My name is Andrew Hunter Murray and this episode we are going to have a health special.

We're going to be talking to Heather Mills about the UK's ambulance services and crisis

and we'll be talking to MD Dr Phil Hammond about where the NHS goes after COVID,

why there have been such enormous delays across so much of the health service

and what can be done about them.

We will also be talking to Solomon Hughes about a very mysterious deal between a British firm

and Saudi Arabia which the UK government is backing but which the UK government won't actually

tell anyone about. That's coming up later but first health.

Last month every single ambulance service in England declared a simultaneous emergency status.

There have been multiple stories across the media about bed shortages,

social care shortages, financial shortages and there have been lots of reports of ambulance

is stuck outside A&E waiting to discharge patients into hospital.

And Heather Mills has been writing in particular about the ambulance situation

and I asked her first of all what the core problem is in the ambulance service at the moment.

Here's Heather. So like the rest of the NHS and indeed social care it's been starved of

resources over the last 10 years. It's faced cuts in real terms and yet at the same time they've

got a big increase in demand and this has all come to a head with COVID of course

which just multiplied their pressures and even though now the initial crisis around COVID has perhaps

passed, people who weren't seeking doctors help generally during COVID have now got lots of

serious conditions that suddenly require ambulance services. So they've got huge demand.

...