THERE is little sign yet that the desperate problems in the accident and emergency departments at York and Scarborough Hospitals are beginning to ease.

Quite the reverse, in fact. Alan Rose, chairman of the York Hospitals Trust which runs both hospitals, admits the crisis could continue for the 'foreseeable few weeks.'

That is bad news, not only for emergency patients who will continue to face long waits in crowded A&E departments, but also for people who have been waiting - sometimes for weeks or months - for important but not urgent operations.

York Hospital bosses said today that between January 1 and January 11, they postponed 84 operations. A further 71 were postponed in December.

That is more than 150 patients facing anxious waits - often in some pain - for their operations to be rescheduled.

The problems are not confined to York and North Yorkshire. They have been repeated at hospitals up and down the country.

Clearly the health service is in serious trouble.

This is traditionally a busy time of year. But what is so worrying about this crisis is that it has happened even though the weather has been comparatively mild - and even though there has been no major flu outbreak. It could have been much worse.

As we reported recently, there are several factors causing problems. Yes, some people go to A&E when they should really be visiting their GP or NHS walk-in centre.

But there are deeper issues, too: funding and staff shortages; too few hospital beds; cuts in social care which mean patients cannot be discharged from hospital because there is no care for them at home.

As York health economist Professor Andrew Street told this newspaper, someone very high up in national government needs to take a long, hard look at the way the whole health system works - and then come up with a plan to make sure these all-too-predictable problems don't happen again in future.