In January, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) chief executive Sam Higginson warned the backlog would not start to clear before March. To help fix the backlog, the government has pledged to "bust bureaucracy" in the NHS with plans that would see England's major hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups split into 42 boards to control all local health services with one budget for each area. Speaking to the Independent last month NHS England medical director, professor Stephen Powis, denied that the NHS was a "Covid-only service". "For every Covid patient in hospital, the NHS is treating three people for other conditions - and it is obviously a disservice to the work done by our staff who have kept services going throughout the pandemic to suggest otherwise," he added.