This is the Guardian.

Today, after years of underfunding and a pandemic that's left the service struggling to cope,

what's the NHS facing in the coming weeks?

The government has claimed it's had one priority above all others.

To protect the NHS, we can protect our NHS and save lives.

Two years into the fight against Covid and hospital wards are overwhelmed. Staff are exhausted

and tens of thousands of them are off sick.

A busy hospital in South Wales, Dr Laura McLelland, who's a consultant in intensive care,

has been bracing herself for the worst of the current wave.

We felt physically prepared and as much as we've had so much experience of looking after

patients with Covid now, I think there was a big concern about the actual emotional

fortitude of the staff and we were dreading having to reopen our Covid ITU because we've just run

out of energy everyone's exhausted, a palpable feeling of just starting to run on empty.

That feeling is replicated in wards across the country from London where admissions are highest

to Yorkshire. That's where Dr Nick Scriven is a consultant in acute medicine.

Definitely the number of patients with Covid positive swabs has

quadrupled since boxing day. We thought it would come falling on from London but it's severely

stretched us. We've had to work up all our extra areas again. It's back to where we were this time

last year. Right now the government is beset by questions and inquiries over its own behaviour

during the pandemic and at the same time it's being forced to confront the reality that the health

service it oversees is in many areas close to breaking point.

I won't provide a definition of what being overwhelmed would constitute because I think that

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