Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who works in the NHS, I would also like to know. My trust has hit full capacity yesterday for the second time in two weeks. Another trust I work for had full ITU capacity and has had to cancel elective surgery. According to more senior clinical staff the hospital is full of genuinely sick people.
But that's inevitable. The NHS runs at close to capacity in normal times, but there has been a period of over a year now when people were being told to avoid going to hospital, to stay isolated at home, when doctors were not seeing patients. I am actually more surprised that you are surprised. The NHS has collapsed: waiting lists are now so long there is no way they will ever drain except by people simply dying due t…
I certainly saw patients over the past year - at no point did I stop. My patients were grateful that the hospital steered away from a dysfunctional breakdown, which allowed us to keep running our day unit and ward to treat our cancer patients. There were a couple of points where local hospitals became overwhelmed, and the diversion to our hospital threatened to overwhelm us as well. I would say the lockdowns allowed us to treat our patients during this last year.
The certainty in your belief that the lockdown has resulted in hospitals being full (?forever) makes several assumptions. There are other explanations, and my personal hunch is it is something to do with spread of infectious diseases with social restriction easing.