675,000 out of the 750,000 people who applied through the Government website to become NHS volunteers have now been approved to volunteer for the NHS, according to the Health Department, which admitted more people signed up than it was expecting. The application process had to be paused at the end of last month due to the volume of processing that was needed for the unprecedented number of applications. With the UK population standing at 67 million, this means one in every 99 people in the country is now volunteering for the NHS…

We’ve had less success finding out how many of them are actually doing anything or how many man hours are being worked. That we are seeing little complaints about the food parcel deliveries and from what we are hearing anecdotally that seems to be working well. Volunteers are also phoning vulnerable people in isolation. The NHS is often criticised as a national religion. At times like this the quasi-religious nature of NHS appreciation comes into its own…