BLUE MONDAY WEEK

Although I have the greatest admiration for my new GP, who is of the type that goes an extra mile for the sake of his patients, he is the exception rather than the rule these days. It is extremely worrying to hear of the Coalition (aka Tory) government's proposals to give GPs more responsibility - and buying power - in another iniquitous shake up of the NHS. People living in the community with long term chronic conditions (like secondary cancer) are poorly served as it is, going by the many complaints about their GP practice I hear from other patients. I resolved mine in the end by switching practitioners, but that was only after I nearly died because of the previous GP's misdiagnosis of my brain lesion as 'labyrinthitis'. It was fortunate I had a hospital consultant to go to then to sort out the mess, for in the insouciant hands of the other guy, I'd have been long dead by now. Others I knew, ill served by this same bad Practice, were not so fortunate; they all died from lack of proper referral procedures in place for them to access a specialist.

I posted a warning about voting for the Tories in 2008 on this same blog. I see no reason to change my opinion of them now they are in power and, according to the BBC, will just have time to bugger up the NHS before the next election. They are seriously bad news. It is astonishing how a group of upper middle class white men, sheltered by privilege all their lives, can so easily wreck the welfare policies that were hard won by the British people over the years, and which, for all their flaws and abuses, have created a better quality of life for us all. What does Cameron mean by his 'big society'? I suspect it's a cockeyed, Old Etonian take on the concept of noblesse oblige in which the poor are served by Conservative ladies handing out food and clothes to the 'deserving' while their men in government tax the recipients, if they can, for the benefits of the gifts.


As things stand, I continue to rely on the NHS for treatment under my excellent hospital consultant, who deserves every penny of his colossal salary, juggling his budget, as he does, not to make money for a bunch of City suits who don't need any more dosh, but to keep people like me alive until the next election. Go Labour!























NHS