THE state of our NHS is no laughing matter.

We know our hospitals are cash starved, our primary care struggling and our ambulance transport a shambles.

This is why MP Caroline Lucas last night secured an adjournment debate in the House of Commons to discuss the plight of our services in Sussex.

In today’s Spotlight pages she is supported by NHS workers and long-suffering patients.

But sometimes humour can be a way of making a point even in the most grim of circumstances. Which is why when someone in the news room suggested trying to get some senior management to talk of the crisis and their response to it was like delving in that favourite book of everyone’s childhood Where’s Wally?, it seemed a pertinent point to make on our front page.

For three days we have been trying to speak personally to Wendy Carberry, accountable officer for the Sussex clinical care commissioning group which handed the contract for ambulance transport services to Coperforma with such disastrous results.

We wanted to know her thoughts on our exclusive report that one of the contracted transport services may not have been been licensed such is the shambles of the system at present.

We recognise that Ms Carberry does not have operational responsibility for the service but as head of the group which handed over public money to the company to run the service she, nevertheless, surely has questions to answer.

Sadly answers came there none.

When the NHS is in the state it is today, starved of case despite its heroic workers that is not good enough.