"Trouble getting an ophthalmology appointment"

Without wishing to seem ungrateful for your response, it is clear to me from my own dealings with WSH Ophthalmology that this is simply a matter of capacity. There is no spare capacity. That is not unreasonable; the department has something like twelve clinical staff to see to thirty thousand appointments a year and three thousand operations. Eighty two appointments a day including nine operations hardly suggests there was much spare capacity even before Mr Lansley got a bee in his bonnet and decided to arbitrarily slash NHS funding across the board in the name of efficiency.

I understand that there is no spare capacity. I understand that this means I will probably be given just a few weeks' notice of my initial appointment (which has yet to occur), and I am satisfied that my details are on the system and my referral is pending. I do not believe it would be fair, while my blindspot remains more or less stable, to jump the queue. Clearly there are a great many other patients in the same situation as myself. Should the situation deteriorate I will of course seek immediate assistance via the accident & emergency department. Naturally should the full eighteen weeks (seven weeks from today, or three by the date of the initial referral request) go by without confirmation of appointment, I will contact WSH PALS and take up the matter formally.

My point was not simply that I had not been seen promptly or that the initial referral request had been mislaid, but that the chaotic reorganisation of the NHS, ordered by our present government despite supposedly binding promises to the contrary, was already having a discernible negative effect on patient care well before Matthew Hancock MP (Cons., West Suffolk) decided to slavishly support the privatisation of the service without ever debating the merits of his chosen course of action.

"Free at the point of use" is a meaningless statement when one considers this case: I cannot use the service as it is oversubscribed, nor can I freely travel to other parts of the country to use similar services. Nor would there be any point. I am unlikely to receive better treatment anywhere else, or faster treatment. I have reached the limits of my ability to access private eyecare and must rely on this service; the service is clearly insufficient to meet the needs of the local population but will likely face further cuts before the next general election, as the NHS budget as a whole is to be reduced still further.

Putting the problems the reorganisation and now privatisation of the NHS have caused for patients out into the open merely seemed good sense. I apologise if the source of my frustrations was unclear.

I am not afraid to go blind as a young man, you understand; it is merely that it would be a shame to do so as the result of a doomed attempt to satisfy a political theory.