Tim Ridgway column: Threat to health service grows as the mercury falls

Fans of hit television show Game of Thrones will know what I'm talking about.

For the last few months, the majority have been happy to ignore a looming threat that has been kept at arms length by a hardy isolated bunch who haven't seen daylight for weeks.

But now the seasons have changed, and the wider population is faced with an immediate crisis, which even a wall cannot keep out.

The suspense of waiting dominates the mind, with the only feeling strong enough to replace it being the fear of what is to come.

As the snow falls around us and temperatures plummet to below freezing, the only certainty is that people will die before things get better.

The sad fact is that this is not just confined to the fictional realm of Westeros.

Another winter is here and so is another crisis in the National Health Service.

There have been warnings that this would happen.

A combination of an ageing population, advances in medicine and a reduction in funding to adult social care has created the perfect storm and made it inevitable that the chill of winter was bound to hit the NHS sooner or later.

Those on the front line - the guardians of the wall if you like - have been experiencing it first, trying their best but ultimately unable to hold back the storm.

Before Christmas, the body that oversees Brighton's hospital was placed in special measures.

Elsewhere across the country, there were tales of people being left at home as hospital transport failed to turn up, those that did reach the health centre were turned away while others simply died in corridors as they awaited treatment.

Then the past few days, it has really kicked off.

Figures show that over four in 10 hospitals in England declared a major alert in the first week of the year as they encountered unprecedented pressures.

Leaked data also shows that just one trust in the entire country hit its four-hour A&E target.

It caused the Red Cross, a previously apolitical organisation, to say there is a humanitarian crisis in the NHS.

The sad truth is though that while nurses and doctors continue to do all they can for those streaming in through their doors, those at the top have been playing their very own game of thrones.

Current Prime Minister Theresa May currently sits on the iron throne, wanting to fight winter with her own icy stare.

At the dispatch box, she delivers the same cold message - never has so much money been poured into the NHS, it's up to those working there to do better.

This argument works fine - after all, it's what is says on the balance sheet.

But when you compare health service funding per head compared to France or Germany, the UK lags way behind.

The reason the iron throne lady can get away with it is because the challengers are so weak.

Winter has not just seen the start of the NHS crisis, but the revealing of a new Jeremy Corbyn too, with those at the Labour helm keen to unleash the opposition leader's true self.

The crisis in the health service should be top of his PR agenda.

But regardless of how he is dressed up, the Labour leader has proved to be just a weak as before - incapable of uniting even his own ministers, never mind his party or the country.

Instead, he's been forced to explain why he was pictured talking to a socialist revolutionary while on a yoga retreat in Mexico and why he disagrees with 99 per cent of his party on the role of Nato.

Forget the NHS on it's knees; the only dead man walking is Jeremy Corbyn.

When two of Labour's leading lights chose to jump ship - one to help run a nuclear power station, the other to oversee a museum full of dusty artefacts - what does that say about the party's chances?

Winter is finally here.

While the NHS may be in crisis at the moment, it will survive many seasons to come; but in this game of thrones, the same cannot be said for the person leading the party which founded it.

TALKING about things that are bad for you, last week I wrote at length about the issue of air pollution - not the sexiest of topics I admit but one that is now the UK's second biggest killer and authorities still are not taking seriously.

So imagine my surprise when, a few days later, there was a huge cloud of smoke rising up from near my house.

It was spouting up from a bonfire, started by some builders working on a house nearby.

Rather than recycling things, they were disposing of items like rafters, skirting boards, even whole doors on the smoking pit with flames reaching up to five foot in height.

Not only is this illegal, but it is also causing a hell of a lot of pollution (not to mention ruining an old dear's washing that she put out to dry).

Despite a report to Adur and Worthing councils, nothing has yet been done. Maybe the town hall bods will take it a bit more seriously after reading it here...