For years people have been raising the warning about the pressures on healthcare system, and for years the conservative party have asked the NHS to do more with

For years people have been raising the warning about the pressures on healthcare system, and for years the conservative party have asked the NHS to do more with less. What does collapse look like? Well, in the early days, it looks very gentle. The four hour wait for ED treatment goes up a bit. Healthcare people say "Look! This is concerning!" and politicians say "eh, it's just winter pressure, we know things are rough in winter." Or you say "Look at the waiting list for community eating disorder treatment, this is concerning!" and politicians say "we're taking people out of mental health hospitals and giving them treatment in the community, so there's a transition period" (they cut beds for ed treatment, but didn't also fund community ed treatment, so wait lists have gone up a lot). It's like Buckaroo or kerplunk or jenga. You can load the donkey, pull the straws, pull the blocks, and stuff still sort of works (less safe, less effective, more harmful) but then something happens and blam you've tipped over into catastrophe.