SOMETIMES you may be tempted to skip over stories about what councillors say at meetings.

Well, if you are one of those people, make sure you don’t today.

Because our story about the NHS, and what councillors had to say about its current state, is a very important one.

Today we highlight the fact that patients are having to wait longer and be in greater pain before being eligible for a growing number of NHS treatments.

Councillors are now rightly calling on health chiefs to explain why some procedures will no longer be as readily available.

The range of operations available to fewer patients include knee and hip replacements, prolapse surgery, tonsil removal and gallstone surgery.

To many, those are treatments that you would expect to receive on the NHS.

And indeed why would you ever question that?

But the threshold is now being raised before patients are offered such treatment due to cost and cuts in funding.

Councillors were asked to note the report but some want to know more.

And so do we.

We all know the increasing pressure being placed on the NHS.

Sadly, waits are getting longer and there is an increasing number of treatments where doctors will have to show patients have a “significant clinical need.”

The policy is known as “clinically effective commissioning” and the number of treatments listed under the policy has risen from 39 to 107.

The NHS may seem them as ‘easy wins.’ Many of us will see it as an abuse of what people expect, and that’s a free NHS for all.