The original question was how to avoid covid shouting out the non-covid hospital demands, not pandemic controls: Test every visitor, cancel covid positive electives, make them leave immediately, only treat covid emergencies in a controlled way. Thus capacity is preserved and lists will fall because covid negative patients get treated by uninfected HCPs. Longer term, someone has to get a grip on disincentives for overpopulation. Covid freedoms will accelerate mutations to a stable state, meanwhile lock out the infection in health care settings. Freedom loving patients have deliberately chosen a higher risk of non treatment, no need to damage other patients and HCPs.
The related point about relaxing covid restrictions in hospitals: Every consultant I know, and that's easily in three figures, would disagree, The only ones who do in-person nowadays are those who have to, i.e. surgeons. GPs don't do in-person except for secondary minor surgical consults and usually only by younger GPs, eg under 50s. Why put service capacity at risk when there are no benefits to anyone, patient or HCP? You may not get a cosy chat in-person with the HCP but your treatment is the same, and you avoid viral shedding in transit. These are GP practices that never did telephone, only personal, consults pre-covid. Comments on consultants "benefitting" from remote consults is typically unconstructive and nasty. The same work is being done, and less would be done if they exposed themselves in transit to the virus.
The calls to dispose of the NHS: Staff already do better now if they were to leave the UK, or switch to private work. Demand will stay, and access to treatment will become the patient's responsibility. A fundamental and good standard of national healthcare is no longer rare in the world now, so getting rid of ours would make us health pariahs, which is much less an issue than the consequences both health and social of such an extremist change.
Helpful suggestions to tweak out unnecessary demand eg perfunctory charges for access: These initially sensible changes have tended to morph into complex set-ups with more exceptions that standard users. However always worth a look.
The lack of ownership and misalignment of resources with outcomes, eg faulty equipment, pointless initiatives: This is about bad management not private v public. Bad management privately means you'll close, so that may tweak behaviour. I've seen and used very large private hospitals outside the UK that offer the breadth and depth of cutting edge practice, and they're successful because every thing is done well enough, even squeaks in beds are addressed because as the staff explained to the student, the squeak is a signal and if not put right, etc as in shoe horse kingdom etc. Every item is logged by every staff, eg you need a dressing, that's a pack charged to your account, and the pack belongs to you. Likewise bloods, scans, etc. Bills, statements on demand at any time, in as much detail, by specialty, activity, date, staff, etc Diagnostic kit and non-surgical treatments come to the bedside. Infection control sweeps on the hour. None of these staff are more skilled or caring than ours, just that culturally they own the problem and do not require corporate staff to make them feel better. It's still down to the patient to choose their specialty consultant from a massive line up. The best firms in the UK are run in the same way because the attitude comes from the top.