SO FAR this decade, the NHS has demonstrated remarkable resilience in the era of austerity – but the Government’s luck appears to be running out.

There are worrying signs of strain across a range of indicators designed to measure how well the system is performing from A&E response times to hospital finances. Things are getting worse across the board.

Doctors and nursing staff have been saying this for months. Now the Government’s own advisors are sounding the alarm. Patrick Carter, an advisor to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said last week that many hospitals were now running on a war footing.

This year there may be no respite after the traditional winter beds crisis.

Hundreds of non-urgent operations have been cancelled in the past two months to help hospitals cope with a rise in cold-weather related illnesses. Soon they will begin feeding back into the system causing further delays.

Monday's front page of The Northern Echo highlights worrying figures for the number of serious blunders made at two of our region’s biggest NHS Trusts. But when doctors and nurses are working in a permanent state of crisis is there any wonder that mistakes happen?

Worse still, highly-paid surgeons are being left kicking their heels because of delays caused by a shortage of beds. This shocking waste is partly caused by a lack of social care to look after elderly patients in the community.

If the Government is serious about helping the NHS it needs to look at care capacity beyond our hospital wards. Cuts to local authority budgets have reduced social care to subsidence levels, but Mr Hunt looks – and acts – like a man in denial.

If the Government continues to ignore what is happening there will be an existential threat to some parts of the NHS by next winter. Time is fast running out.