it or you think it's only in the bigger hospitals. but this is happening everywhere. new figures show the pressure facing hospitals in england. last week a fifth of ambulances had to queue for at least 30 minutes before discharging their patients. the number of people who then had to wait to be moved on to a hospital ward has hit a record high. last month, 120,000 patients were held in a&e for four hours before that transfer with more than 16,000 waiting for more than 12 hours. these figures represent tremendous pressures throughout the whole system, from primary care and ambulance services to the emergency department, to our general wards and to patients then being discharged back to the community. and in each of these fields, colleagues are struggling to give timely and high quality care to patients. the nhs says it has been dealing with record numbers of 999 calls, at the same time as high levels of staff sickness caused by covid.