Counting down to the general election: a key year in the politics of the NHS

Sadly labour is better for NHS and conservatives are better for economy. This is the dilemma which I have. NHS needs more money but it also need good leaders who promote good culture. Sadly club culture, old boys network way of appointing leaders and racism, sexism and other cultural issues prevent NHS from appointing right leaders who put patients at the heart of everything they do. The effect of subconscious bias on patient safety and staff well-being and the way BME staff feel and treated are simply shocking. Even King's fund is quiet about these issues. This is what saddens me and how deep rooted the unconscious bias is. It is so deep rooted and so unconscious even many good people do not know they are biased and do not see it as a problem. Hope King's fund does some good study on this and protect patients and staff in our NHS and all staff and not simply who belong to our club.

To throw yet more money into the bottomless pit of the NHS is not the answer. To use the phrase every government likes to use, we are putting more money into the NHS, is in my opinion, a way of saying, we are giving the incompetent management of the NHS yet more money to waste on gadgets,nonsense paper work and targets to justify their over inflated salaries. The NHS does not need people going round the hospitals doing surveys and opinion polls to find out how to make it run even less efficient. After a short stay in hospital myself recently I watched with interest the workings of the ward. I was quickly aware the amount of work being done by the staff nurse which was being taken up mostly by paper work. This paper work took up at least a third of her shift time which suggests that a shortage of nursing staff was obviously apparent. Instead of having unqualified people dictating what needs to be done why not ask the people who actually care and work in the hospitals, ie, the working doctors and nurses who will know what and where the money needs to be spent.

I would have been bankrupt by now, despite insurance. I have had two types of cancer, two strokes ( and I am much better from those thank goodness), depression treated twice yearly for about 45 years by therapy and anti depressants, now 'cured' by Venlafaxine for the past 20 years or so. And my pregnancies were dreadful throughout. The idea of privatising fills me with total gloom