I think much has improved in the NHS during Labour's time in office. However it dosn't get the amount of credit for this that it should. It is easy to blame the media (and that would also be fair): it is also true that "bad news" stories seem to make more impact than "good" ones. However,we have I feel, failed to communicate our successes in a way that impacts sufficiently on consciousness of the electorate. In terms of future action, if the experience of myself, other family members and friends is anything to go by, we need to do more to insure that the adminstrative processes within the NHS are sufficiently efficient. As many of the complaints I have heard can be attributed, in part at least, to admin.failures. We also have do more to ensure that management, at all levels of the organisation, have the competences and leadership skills necessary to motivate and inspire the dedicated employees of the NHS to feel properly valued and to consistently and universally achieve the high levels of both efficiency and effectiveness that are required for the public to feel their money is being well spent and that Labour are the one's to be most trusted to safeguard, improve and develop the NHS of the future. I know that no government can or should micro-manage the NHS but that makes it all the more important that it appoints people at the senior levels of the NHS who own skill sets include the above competences and skills and who are good at more than "bean-counting" and managing by statistics.

Thanks for your comment. I have made a careful note of the points you raise for future discussion regarding the NHS in Plymouth. Admin is certainly one of the things we need to encourage best practice in. If you are a constituent and the specific experience you refer to is recent, then I could look into this for you. By raising specific incidents it can be possible to shine a spotlight on something underlying it which needs changing. By the way, I think that further improvements in the NHS depend on getting the balance right between government setting a framework and standards but also setting the NHS free as much as possible to determine how those standards should be achieved. I hope we are moving towards this. Tory plans would in my view go much further than is sensible – they would get rid targets. That is the path of not knowing what is going on and probably betrays the true Tory agenda of getting rid of the NHS by neglecting what enables us to know it is truly a ‘N’HS. Linda Gilroy MP