OUR hospitals are crumbling before our eyes. Our once glorious, much envied National Health Service is now so overstretched and under-resourced it is barely a shadow of its former self.

Two of our county’s biggest hospitals declared a major incident over the weekend as the emergency departments began to give way at the seams.

If that is happening in Gloucestershire it doesn’t bear thinking about how the hospitals in our major cities are coping.

There were reports of waiting times of 15 hours to be seen by a medic in the accident and emergency departments post Christmas and New Year.

This is an outrageous and unacceptable wait in the modern world.

But it is not the fault of our wonderful NHS staff who work long hours in difficult conditions.

One of the biggest problems facing these units is the drastic changes made to GP’s hours and consequently the opening times of local surgeries.

Our GP’s who used to be on call and could often calm a panicking parent or the worried elderly now work virtual office hours.

Sickness obviously doesn’t happen to order so anyone who has a child who becomes unwell out of those 9-5 hours is going to do the instinctive thing and take them to the nearest hospital. Why wouldn’t you?

Add to this the bureaucratic nightmare that has evolved whereby patients are not being released from hospital until long after they are capable of going home and you have a major crisis on your hands.

It is preposterous and inhumane to be treating people in corridors or for ambulances to be turned away.

The problem is not going to go away so any government worth its salt would be wise to put the NHS at the top of its to do list.