The NHS

There are so many different aspects of the NHS that it is difficult to grasp their priorities. The strains on this priceless service is frequently apparent as the doctors and nurses struggle to cope with the onslaught from people who arrive from all over the world and demand treatment when they have never paid into it.

Someone must come up with a priority list which depends upon what people have paid into the system. It would almost equate to how well people are insured. If one has paid into the system since its introduction like my mother she should have priority over recent illegal immigrants who are just abusing it.

I am a bit cross because my mother is 94 years of age. She fell ill this afternoon (1pm) and an ambulance was called. It took two hours to arrive as she was non priority. She was taken to the Royal at Leicester (as usual despite it being our most inaccessible hospital) and she was admitted. My wife rang at 10pm and she had still not been seen by a doctor.

Now I know that she is old. I know that she is non-priority but why admit and not diagnose? She and my father paid into this travesty all of their lives. They were told that when they needed treatment that they would receive it because that was the contract in those days. It used to work until we were invaded by the rest of the world. We should not abandon our elderly because they are inconvenient. We should remember that without the contributions from people like my mother we would not have an NHS which so many have abused.

I realise that the people who actually supported our so called democracy until the politicians turned everything on its head are now unimportant but we need a sense of fairness again in this country and it is about time that the Coalition addressed the question of priority in the NHS.