Health

Pensioners have contributed to society when they were at work, now they should be getting a return on their contributions. Their need for optical attention, dental treatment and health care increases with age and it is fundamentally unfair for them to have to pay for it all over again. All health care should be free, uniformly available and dignified. Time for older people is at a premium and they should be treated with the highest priority on waiting lists and in queues for treatment. In residential accommodation the personal care should also be free (as in Scotland. Mixed wards should be abolished, they are an affront to the basic dignity of patients. Obviously the level of our children's health should be uppermost in our consideration for they are tomorrows adults.

There of course is a greater problem in as much that we seem to be slowly losing our National Health Service with all the free care that is associated with this great institution. The whole system seems to be over manned with the wrong type of personnel. We must eliminate all the useless administration systems and make sure there are more medical staff than office staff who are preoccupied with costs and target figures. It seems ludicrous that medical staff have to meet target figures whilst that work in the privatised utility companies have no such compunction. If the utilities get into trouble then the domestic consumer bills are racked up to make sure all losses are covered and still pay dividends to the shareholders. This slow erosion of turning the NHS into a fee paying service must be curtailed. Governments have a duty of care to ensure all there citizens get the utmost medical care.

We would also like to see the return or implementation of local country or community hospitals for less onerous conditions. The current practice of locating great monoliths out of town are clearly not user friendly to the elderly or those without transport.