At what point do we have to admit to ourselves things in this country are simply not working as they should do? Asks columnist Rhys Griffiths.

How many of the little things that make up day-to-day life have to start crumbling, and eventually breaking, before we accept that this state of affairs isn't merely some passing difficulty but an entire nation struggling to deliver the very basics its citizens require to go about their lives.

This week I've been speaking to people who have endured unimaginable distress as wait times in our county’s A&E departments continue to spiral and they've been forced to endure lengthy delays before finally being able to be admitted to hospital wards and a bed where they can receive the treatment they need.

When talking to patients and their families you encounter a remarkable degree of patience and stoicism, a sense that even in the most trying of circumstances people are still prepared to give the National Health Service the benefit of the doubt. All speak of the quality of care their loved ones have received once admitted and of the hard work of the nursing staff who are overstretched, overworked and, in the eyes of many, underpaid.

It is admirable how people who have seen loved-ones imperilled by a system on the verge of collapse still manage to see the good in the NHS. But in a developed, rich economy it cannot be right that a man with a serious kidney infection and pneumonia is left sitting in an upright chair for six nights before a hospital bed becomes available.

Do we in Britain have any idea how the rest of the developed world sees such things? Because in many other countries this level of treatment would be considered simply unacceptable and a cause for deep national shame.

Criticise the American healthcare system for how it treats the poor and uninsured, but the US middle class looks upon our NHS with a mixture of bemusement and disgust at how even people with serious conditions are left to wait and wait for the care they need.

'At some point we will require a government prepared to move beyond warm words and symbolism, to take a grip of the multiple crises enveloping the nation...'

And it isn't just these big things - the NHS, matters of life and death. It's the smaller things too. Small things that when added together represent the proper functioning of a nation.

Take our railway network. In parts of the country, particularly the north west, train companies such as Avanti West Coast and TransPennine Express are making the lives of travellers hell by their inability to run anything close to the timetables and services they have promised. Things are better here in the south east, it is true, but just days after Southeastern loudly trumpeted the launch of its new timetable, which they promised would mean “more trains on time”, I have seen my trains to and from work delayed every day without any tangible explanation.

Nigel Farage tweeted earlier this month that “nothing seems to work in this country anymore.” It's not often I find myself in agreement with the high priest of Brexit himself, but on this one I'm afraid I struggle not to concur.

Hemingway famously wrote that one goes bankrupt “gradually, then suddenly.” And perhaps that's the way a country breaks down too. It certainly feels like the gradual erosion of public services is reaching a point where it is impossible not to conclude there’s something wider at play. At some point, something has to be done by those in power, those in power for more than a decade and those with the levers that control taxation and spending, to find genuine solutions to fix the myriad problems which now seem to beset all areas of our public sector.

Have you tried to renew a new passport for a trip that needs to be made suddenly? Have you tried to book a driving test that might be the route to accepting that job offer that requires a licence? All these small things our taxes are supposed to pay for in a functioning society seem increasingly to not function efficiently at the best of times and collapse at the very worst.

And yet, to truly rub salt in the wound, this week Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been proudly promising that next year's coronation of King Charles III will show off the very best of Britain to the world. Well isn’t that wonderful. I may be a cynical old republican but I do understand a good many people in this country are proud of the pomp and pageantry that symbolise what they believe to be our nation at its very best. But what an affront to the people it will be if we are forced to watch our monarch paraded through the streets of London in a golden carriage, dripping with imperial finery, while the very services on which his subjects depend are collapsing around us following this new Winter of Discontent.

At some point we will require a government prepared to move beyond warm words and symbolism, to take a grip of the multiple crises enveloping the nation. David Cameron spoke of ‘Broken Britain’ before he swept into Downing Street more than a decade ago, we must hope that eventually someone in Number 10 works out how to put it back together again.

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