2nd July 2023

Tomorrow marks 55 years since my dear father (o.s.) died at the age of 57 in Dudley Road (now City) Hospital, here in Birmingham. Clinical conditions in 1968 were awful but there were nurses to hold your hand. On Wednesday the NHS will be the same age as me. When I was born, no-one could afford to call the doctor, so new mothers relied on the local welfare nurse - someone who didn’t have a university degree. Indeed, she would have scoffed, pushing up her sleeves and using her occupational experience. Yet, the PM this week says he has invested £14 billion of extra funding for the NHS, aiming to recruit 50,000 more graduate nurses over the next few months. Higher salaries for senior doctors already on over £100k, who are shortly to strike for yet more money, are not the answer either.  What’s needed is what we had years ago:  an influx of new non-graduate staff, who are able to free up the time of their more highly-qualified colleagues, and who might even have the time to hold the hands of the dying and make their last days more comfortable.  That’s what we should be spending vital NHS funds on, Prime Minister.Take some advice from someone the same age as the NHS, who - like that welfare nurse in 1947, and the one who held my father’s hand -  had to learn from the school of life.