Having recently spent 4 days on Trauma and Orthopaedic ward in Worcestershire Royal Hospital I must beg to differ with the Conservatives bold claims. The staff were hard pressed to do even the most basic duties, working none stop. Their experiences were told to me, amongst which how nurses were leaving, returning to their homeland to work as cleaners. How regular staff refused extra shifts as they were over worked and too tired to carry on. The monies paid out for agency nurses are certainly not benefitting the nurses. By the time they have paid out for uniforms and parking, paid their own taxes they end up with about the same as the employed. The Agencies are the ones that benefit. We are paying a middle man!

I saw and heard for myself the conditions they were forced to work under, and if that is not enough the ignorance of some of the patients they looked after, One Staff Nurse was repeatedly, verbally abused by a man named "George", who wanted to know where "The black bitch" was. And this was the least of the problems the ward faced during this one particular night. How she continued to complete her 12 hours shift I will never know.

The hospitals of time gone by have long gone. The care that was given was second to none. Food and liquids were an important part of the get-well process, gone are the staff that over saw this very important part of the day. The nurses serve the sadly depleted menu as and when able, cups of tea a rare sight, though if desperate you can ask the over stretched nurses and they will with a smile, oblige as soon as they are able. If this is what The Conservatives count as progress and profess to be proud of, then I am sadly disappointed in them. It is time for them to take off their blinkers and see the real world and do something positive. Look after our angels and our Treasure, the NHS. Stop the privatisation which is leaching the monies that are meant to pay for nurses, doctors, care and medicines our ill need. I for one, and there are many others, will not vote for a party that takes from the needy the resources that are needed. Members of a party that lines their own pockets with their fingers in the pies of companies that are profiting at the cost of our NHS. Cease making excuses, when monies are found for warfare and lining the pockets of corrupt governments around the world, for sweetening a deal with the DUP. It is time to get your priorities right. Stop treating our nurses as skivvy's, let them do their job.

Jean Reynolds

Bewdley