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Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across the healthcare sector, responded to the announcement about the restoration of NHS services 

“This is the right time to resume operations and other treatments that were stopped because of Covid-19, providing it is done in a managed way.

“The NHS has remained open for business for critical and other urgent care and it has not been overwhelmed.

“But freeing up 33,000 hospital beds at pace and suspending non-urgent procedures has created a massive backlog and it will mean increased pressure on hospitals, community, GP services and social care.

“Starting this work again needs to be done carefully with local health leaders deciding what is best for their local communities and what can be managed. We know some staff will need downtime to recover after what they have been through.

“It will also be vital that all the parts of the NHS and social care at local level plan together, as what happens in one part inevitably affects another. Rebuilding services needs to take account of this.

“The pandemic has unleashed amazing innovation across the service, with new ways of working, new ways of supporting patients, and new collaboration between services. We don’t want to go back to the NHS as it was, we want to emerge in a new place. This is about reset not just recovery.”