NHS managers declared a “critical incident” across Cornwall’s health system as Cornwall's only emergency department at Treliske again faced intolerable pressure. Urgent action is needed to avoid this becoming a perpetual feature of our health service.

Resilience must be built into our NHS before the Health Secretary attempts his desired reorganisation (shifting resource "From Hospital to Community"). Our hospitals have been set to operate with excessively high bed-occupancy levels — conventionally operating with above 95 per cent bed-occupancy, even when pressure is lowest.

The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (Dr Adrian Boyle) correctly (in my view) advised that every acute hospital needs an additional ward to take the pressure off the emergency department, to improve patient flow into our hospitals.

It doesn’t help that Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, kicked social care reform into the political long grass last week. If he can commission Professor Darzi to produce an excellent report into much-needed restoration of the NHS in just nine weeks, then it really shouldn’t take three years to do the same for social care.

In Cornwall, should we heed Dr Boyle’s advice, but we must build-back and better use services available outside Treliske’s Emergency Department – from better use of and support for our local pharmacies to reinstating the 24/7 Urgent Treatment Centre at West Cornwall Hospital. That service was closed overnight under the Conservatives over two and a half years ago. That decision has clearly contributed to local difficulties.

The government’s allocation to Cornwall Council was announced before Christmas, and again it wasn’t good. I note the Conservatives have complained, pointing to the dire financial state of Cornwall Council’s finances. But they’ve been in control for the past decade. We acknowledged when they also took control of the Council four years ago, that if one party controlled the Council, had all MP seats and ran the government they were in a powerful position to deliver what Cornwall needs. But they’ve presided over failure, the worst health and care crisis in NHS history, the worst housing emergency in living memory, the closure and run-down of public services and the Council – previously financially robust – now on the verge of bankruptcy.

Of course, Labour’s decision is completely unacceptable and Cornwall deserves a fair deal, and to be at the head of the queue, but the sound and fury of the Conservatives is just another attempt to distract attention from their own failings and culpability.

Andrew George

Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives