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The NHS is bleeding to death, and the time to operate is now
Many people would have been rather confused yesterday when they switched on the Today programme and heard that the health service is basically bankrupt. Apparently, the NHS needs another £10 billion from the taxpayer to survive in three years' time (put another way, just less than the cost of paying for the entire police service).

Listeners would have been forgiven for thinking: hang on, hasn't the NHS had a lot of extra money already? And they would be right. After a decade of historic spending increases, the NHS budget has more than doubled, from around £45 billion to £105 billion. The service has 41,800 more doctors and 84,700 more nurses. To say the NHS has never had more resources is an understatement: it is in a wonderland of extra money, on a scale that its leaders never expected. Quite amazing, then, that it is coming back to the taxpayer cap in hand....