A national treasure, tarnished: Can Britain fix its health service?

Fifteen hours after she was taken out of an ambulance at Queen's Hospital with chest pains and pneumonia, Marian Patten was still in the emergency room, waiting for a bed in a ward. Patten, 78, was luckier than others who arrived at this teeming hospital, east of London: She had not yet been wheeled into a hallway.

For months, doctors at Queen's have been forced to treat people in a corridor because of a lack of space. As the ambulances kept pulling up outside, the doctor supervising the ER, Darryl Wood, said it was only a matter of time before nurses would begin diverting patients into the overflow space again.

"We're in that mode every day now because the NHS doesn't have the capacity to deal with all the patients," Wood said.

Despite her ordeal, Patten was sympathetic. Decades ago, she said, the National Health Service saved her husband's life when he had a...