E&S Comment: Ambulance diversions show Stafford Hospital has been failed

Yet its continuing woes are spilling out and having an impact elsewhere.

Take today's example of 30 ambulances being diverted from Stafford every day to other hospitals including Wolverhampton's New Cross and Walsall Manor.

It is in every sense a postcode lottery because West Midlands Ambulance Service has had to re-configure the catchment area for Stafford based on where people live or where the call comes in from.

Before the various problems at Stafford were exposed, people would be sent to its accident and emergency department any time of the day or night.

Now, as well as overnight closures, a shortage of nurses has resulted in the hospital's administrators asking for more ambulances to be sent elsewhere.

That costs more money because the ambulances are travelling further afield and for longer.

And it puts extra pressure on other hospitals already having to cope with soaring demand for emergency care.

If the Prime Minister is not careful he will find that Stafford Hospital will come to haunt him as much as it haunted the former Labour government, under whose watch all its previous problems came to pass.

It was not enough simply to inquire into and confirm that there were indeed serious problems.

Stafford, as a major town, deserved its hospital to become a leading light for a modern NHS, fit for purpose but still true to its core aims.

In around three months the Trust that controls Stafford Hospital is set to be dissolved.

The plan for what happens next is to no-one's liking outside the Whitehall bubble.

It does not suit the doctors and nurses at the other hospitals.

It does not suit the people on the fringes of Stafford's catchment area who now face a longer journey for treatment in an emergency.

It does not suit their families who have to travel farther to see them while they are being cared for.

And it does not suit the people of Wolverhampton and Walsall who will find themselves waiting longer for care because of the influx from Stafford.

Paramedics will carry out their duties to the best of their ability and will do their utmost to get people to the nearest suitable hospital.

But for many of those people the nearest suitable hospital would be Stafford, if only it had been properly supported instead of being the black sheep of the NHS.

Selfish shoppers have never had it so good

The recession is well and truly over if people are prepared to push and shove to buy a pair of trainers.

More than 100 people queued for hours to get a re-released pair of Nike Huaraches.

And at £84.99, this was not some bargain for people struggling on a budget.

Yet it turned very ugly with people who were incapable of queuing up and waiting their turn.

There were surely other things that could have occupied the time of police officers who were instead forced to intervene to keep order at a branch of Foot Locker.

Those who pushed their way to the front ought to feel thankful that they have the money to spend in the first place.

The generation that lived through the Second World War had to queue up for basic foods on the ration.

They will shake their heads in despair at the greed and selfishness of those prepared to get so agitated over fashionable footwear.

We are told constantly by some politicians that we are living in an age of austerity and we are all in it together.

But austerity and even basic manners appear to go out the window for some people when faced with a chance to buy the latest thing.

They appear never to have known true hardship or they would realise how lucky they are.