Sorry.

Ministers - including the Prime Minister herself - are queuing up to apologise for the NHS's performance over the Christmas and New Year period.  Now there are plenty of things they could justifiably apologise for, but I'm not sure that this is one of them.  Let's consider the evidence - the efficiency of the NHS relies basically on four factors (1)  the number of doctors, nurses and technicians available (2) the number, size and convenience of hospitals and other facilities available (3) the quality of the technology used and (4) the number of people seeking to use it. The government is directly or indirectly responsible for 1, 2 and 3, but 4 is in the lap of the gods.  In preparing the NHS for the winter, the government have to guess  what the likely demand will be.  I think this time they guessed wrong - simple as that.