I’ve been listening to LBC on the drive to/from work for over a decade probably. I feel like they always get the right mix of something interesting to listen to and just enough crackpot callers to provide entertainment value.

Congrats and welcome along!

NHS saved the sight in my left eye following a horrendous viral infection about 20 years ago. It was the first time I remember feeling in absolute awe of a system that got me from GP to Consultant to urgent treatment and back to health with abolsutely nothing to pay; totally incredible.

I’m also old enough to remember family GPs, no telephone queues for an appointment at 8am and not being made to feel that you are nothing more than an incovenience.

I would vote for a truly competent government of any colour that could drag the NHS out of its grave and make it the thriving, efficient and well-resourced organisiation that we all deserve it to be.

That said, I’m hugely skeptical that the NHS is coming back from what appears to be a managed decline; even Tony Blair was in the news recently saying that he thinks there should be an expanded role for the private sector in healthcare - and I think that the New Labour government did really good things with the NHS; certainly from a point of use perspective.

Instead, what I now understand about private medical insurance is that they won’t cover pre-existing conditions, so (and I’m sorry to say), my strong advice to all you healthy young people of the fediverse is to take-out some private health insurance now; when you don’t need it, to ensure that you can get the prompt medical treatment you need later in life when shit starts going wrong.