NHS

It beggars belief, my neighbour has been diagnosed with throat cancer, his treatment is at a hospital 48 miles away, we actually live a 15min walk to our local hospital, now to travel 96 miles on a return journey might seem not a lot to ask but when it has to be done 21 times in a very short period it becomes wearing, the main road that you have to travel on is one of the worst  accident and traffic jam roads in the country, it becomes a journey of about 41/2 hours if not longer, so that has to be taken into account when looking at the stress levels that are attained, as the treatment goes on the stress becomes stronger, the throat will not allow you to speak only in a whisper and it is very difficult to drink and eat, so at the end of all this radio therapy and travel events you just might recover from the cancer but at what additional cost to your health?, all this stress could be contained by treating patients at their local hospital rather than travelling such distances, because of the therapy he has had to be transported to his treatment by hospital transport, all this cost when a perfectly good hospital is within spitting distance.

I am fully aware that some hospitals are specialist hospitals and deal with certain conditions, what has happened over the years some hospitals have grabbed the limelight with their specialist working and have added more and more conditions that they specialise in leaving some hospitals very close by with no ability to do  this work, so the specialist hospitals expand and non specialist ones contract, it has to be asked of patients will you be happy to travel many miles at your expense, to hospitals that are a long way away because your hospital is not qualified to look after you, is this the NHS you want?, because if you do not watch out this is just what will happen, so beware.