AN NHS overhaul, vaccines and the social care crisis were the issues raised by columnists in the newspapers.

The Daily Express

James Whale said everybody was overly fond of saying that we have the best health service in the world.

“We certainly have some of the best doctors, nurses and other clinicians but they’re all too often battling against top-heavy management and poor political decisions,” he said. “Before we stick more money into the NHS, there needs to be a debate about how it’s managed and how those people who can afford to pay should be prepared to do so.”

He said everyone was getting upset about tax rises, but we never expected the pandemic, so obviously we have to pay sooner or later to help get down the bill of billions it has cost.

“I think we should tell the politicians the truth ‑ that the NHS needs to be completely re-organised. We can’t always have everything for nothing, so let’s remember it’s not the Government who are paying ‑ it’s us

“The NHS is great and the people who work in it are keeping me alive, but they need the back-up of a decent management and better direction. So let’s stop being scared to admit that it’s time to change.”

The Guardian

Sean O’Grady has had his winter flu jab, he said.

“It goes nicely with my matching pair of coronavirus doses, I like to think, and when the Covid booster vaccination comes around (soon, I hope), I’ll have a full set of protections,” he said. “I don’t feel any false sense of security, but it’s nice to be fully jabbed. Next – a very welcome development – come the teenagers. The country will be a safer place; but why weren’t they vaccinated before they al went back to school and created new Covid transmission hubs?”

He warned against becoming complacent about Covid.

“The pandemic is far from over, and people are still dying of Covid. There is still a danger out there, and common sense and all public health experience tells us that a highly-transmissible virus with no continuing restrictions during autumn and winter spells trouble ahead.”

The Scotsman

Christine Jardine said Boris Johnson’s plans for the NHS and social care didn’t live up to the hype.

“The overwhelming emotion for many of us now is disappointment,” she said. “Instead of a game-changing plan for wholesale investment in a system that was crying out for help even before the pandemic, we have a half-baked notion.

“And to pay for it, an unfair and unbalanced hike in National Insurance across the UK.

“As the economic impact of the combination of Covid-19 and Brexit begins to bite, this government is going to take the lion’s share of funding from those already hardest hit.”