Below is a comment from the NHS on today’s announcement by the government of funding for the health service.

NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said: “As well as caring for seriously ill and vulnerable coronavirus patients, our hardworking nurses, doctors, therapists and other NHS staff are looking after many other patients, some of whose care has been disrupted by these two large waves of COVID.

“This extra funding will therefore rightly enable them to tackle longer waits for care by carrying out up to one million extra checks, scans and additional operations.

“And because COVID takes a mental as well as physical toll, it’s particularly important that we will be able to continue to expand mental health services too.”