Is cancelling hospital appointments what the Queen really would have wanted? - Jayne Dowle

The funeral of Her Majesty, of course. As the country closes down for this most solemn of Bank Holidays, it’s reported that many NHS trusts are running a severely reduced routine service today. Whilst emergency and urgent treatments will still happen, long-planned operations cancelled include hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery, maternity checks and some cancer treatments, but not all, thankfully.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not remotely disrespectful, just realistic.

I’m saying this as a person who left my South Yorkshire home in the early hours this morning to drive to London with my daughter, making our way towards a coveted spot on the pavement outside Westminster Abbey.

I am actually taking a day off work to do this at my own expense, as I am self-employed - no actual Bank Holiday for me, ever.

I don't, however, work in any kind of even vaguely emergency or essential service and no-one will really notice whether I’m sat at my desk typing or standing patiently waiting for the funeral cortege to arrive.

My daughter’s sixth form college, inevitably, is closed for the day. Last week however, she was perturbed to rock up at 9am on Monday morning to be informed that her one-on-one tutorial had been cancelled summarily “because of the current sad events”. She was not happy, I can tell you. We tried to work out just how distraught by the death of a 96-year-old monarch five days earlier did a sixth-form teacher really have to be in order to require the morning off work.

We are all sad, but life must go on. I do have the utmost respect for the Royal Family and the momentous time in history we are living through.

However, I am fortunate enough to be physically and mentally well, and at the moment, none of my close family members are suffering from a life-threatening disease.

If they were, however, and we received a cursory appointment cancellation text for this morning - as is the NHS way these days - I would be livid. Anyone who has even nursed or supported a terminally-ill person knows that Bank Holidays and weekends mean nothing; every day is like another, and another one closer to the inevitable.

And yes, even funerals are being cancelled, which seems to me entirely counter-intuitive. If we are now a nation in mourning, why can we not mourn our own?

I went to the funeral of a university friend in July, the first of our immediate circle to die, at the age of 54, from a brain tumour.

Her funeral was held in Chester, where she lived with her husband and raised three sons, but the mourners made their travel and accommodation plans and came from almost every corner of the UK, and abroad too.

The church service was an hour long, filled with poignant readings and performances from her family members. The wake afterwards was a life-affirming event, bringing together all the generations in a welcoming hotel.

How would her poor husband have felt if this absolute pinnacle of organisational achievement, bringing together hundreds of people, had found itself ‘cancelled’ at short notice?

Since Covid lockdowns so effectively closed down huge swathes of our normal daily lives, we have, I’m afraid, become all too eager to duck out of things. And it does sadden me to see that those in charge of the big decisions – healthcare, public buildings, public transport, administration – promote this agenda in the name of public interest.

It sets a dangerous precedent. When the next national figure passes away, will there be an outcry if people are not given the day off work? Let’s be honest. For every patient person standing in a Westminster queue, there’s another kicking back at this unexpected chance of a skive.

I’m sorry to report that despite the sombre mood, not everyone bidding to stay off duties will be sitting in front of the television on Monday ‘paying their respects’. Not everyone, despite the blanket TV coverage of Royal events, even cares.

Those quick to embrace this pernicious example of ‘cancel culture’ are equally quick to justify their actions with a hasty proclamation of, “it’s what she would have wanted”. I doubt, with respect, that Her Majesty would have wanted anyone else’s life or wellbeing to be put in danger at the expense of her own funeral.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​