professor sirjonathan van—tham is to step down as deputy chief medical officer for england at the end of march, to return to academia. professor van—tham joined the department of health on secondment from nottingham university and played a leading role in the response to the covid pandemic, including working on the vaccine taskforce. the health secretary sajid javid praised his communication skills and described him as a �*national treasure' nhs waiting times in england have reached a record high. six million people were waiting for planned operations and procedures in november. and nearly 13,000 patients waited more than 12 hours for a hospital bed in december — that is the highest figure since records began in 2010. 0ur health correspondent katharine da costa is with me. records being set at a rate of knots, but not the kind of records we want to see.— we want to see. that's right, overall a _ we want to see. that's right, overall a picture _ we want to see. that's right, overall a picture of— we want to see. that's right, j overall a picture of sustained pressure. 6 million people were