In a letter to Boris Johnson, cabinet ministers and the NHS England chief executive, the NHS Providers group says demands on staff are rising. Many chief executives are saying that the overall level of pressure they are now experiencing is different in shape, but similar in scale to what they saw in January when the NHS was under the greatest pressure in a generation. The letter calls on the Government to make ‘the right decisions’ as it finalises NHS funding for the second half of the financial year. Hospital pressures include going ‘full speed’ to address the backlog of mental health and community care services, and record demands for urgent and emergency care. There are growing hospital admissions for Covid, along with more than a million cases of long Covid and people suffering poor mental health. Hospitals are currently running enhanced infection control measures, leading to ‘significant loss of capacity’, with staff self-isolating or suffering stress and mental health issues.