England’s NHS is not increasing the number of patients it treats quickly enough to reduce a massive backlog of non-urgent care as it braces for the impact of the Omicron variant, according to Financial Times research that shows a service beset by workforce shortages and constraints imposed by Covid-19.

Boris Johnson’s announcement on Sunday that all over-18s will be offered a booster jab by the end of December has trained a harsh spotlight on the NHS’s ability to cope with the multiple demands it now faces. Our research suggests that even before it confronted this new obligation, the health service was entering winter in its worst ever shape.

The arrival of Omicron has potentially exacerbated this trend. In the first of its annual audits of the NHS, the FT in 2017 identified a health service living through a state of “permanent winter” with intense strains on the taxpayer-funded system barely letting up even in months that would once have given it a chance to catch its breath.