England endured a traumatic week, as a second lockdown was imposed at short notice to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, the NHS was put back on an emergency footing, and chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the furlough scheme to March.
This emphasised the need to develop virtual wards and remote monitoring schemes to provide a better service to non-hospital patients and a major ‘pulse oximetry at home’ service was announced. Veteran commentator Roy Lilley put the editor of the Health Service Journal, Alastair McLellan, in his HealthChat hotseat, to reflect on almost 20 years reporting on the NHS. We have a write-up.
