the nhs is facing. when i spoke to raymond ahead of his operation, he said he was very short of breath, and that had got steadily worse. this operation should make a huge difference to his quality of life. we know that the longer you wait, the worse your heart function becomes, and it slowlyjust sort of inexorably deteriorates in the background. and this is why he s been feeling worse over this period of time he s been waiting. this is the valve that we re predominantly interested in today. the recent strain on the nhs wasn t as bad as many feared, which is helping hospitals catch up on the huge backlog of planned care. my personal view is that if the country hadn t stepped up to become vaccinated, we wouldn t be here doing as much work as we are now. what we ve done now is we ve put the patient on the heart lung bypass machine, | and so the body is now totally supported. a partnership with hospitals in oxford and brighton this winter, has helped care for some of the most urgent case