I suppose the issue is with so much surgery nowadays is that people are waiting longer before they go into surgery?

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It's that they have longer to think about it. They sit down, they have maybe weeks, months, sometimes even years. So that anxiety can build up. And I can imagine that those levels of anxiety are probably bigger now than they were 20 years ago because of the amount of time people have to think about what's about to happen.

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I think as the waiting lists increase, patients would naturally get more anxious. But in addition, they're getting more frustrated as well. And I think those two forces sort of play against each other and make the situation worse. I commonly see patients have been waiting over a year for their operation, and actually they're just a bit exasperated.

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And on the day after they've waited the whole year, they can be very frustrated. We see those frustrations manifest in various different ways. The waiting lists are something that the NHS is trying to tackle, but it will take a long time to bring those down. But I wonder if this increase in anxiety is something that should be