Crumbling buildings don’t have to mean Game Over for the NHS.

Call To Acton

Today I want to tell you about the alarming state of NHS buildings. These are the sort of facts that will probably make you feel even worse than you already do about the state of UK politics and the behaviour of our leaders. But before I do that, I’d like to start with a message of hope today. Perhaps the things I’m about to say might seem “twee”, overly-optimistic, or naive. I’ve certainly been accused of all of those things in the past, but I believe in them, so I’m going to write them down:

It doesn’t have to be like this.

We can change things.

We can demand better, and turn all of this around.

Right, I’m glad I’ve got those down on paper. There are so many bad things stacking up all around us that it can feel like misery-Tetris right now. If you’ve ever played Tetris, you’ll know that if you’re paying total attention, you can keep on top of the falling bricks, but the minute you become distracted, you lose your rhythm and the whole thing disintegrates. “No!” you think “No!” ...but by then it’s too late and the game is lost.

Perhaps you’ve never played Tetris, but you have small children, or had small children once, or have ever been tasked with taking care of small children. If you take your eye off them for one second too long, there’ll be jam on the sofa and you’ll feel despondent (and even hopeless). So how do we keep the blocks in the air, and the jam off the sofa? How do we stop ourselves from becoming despondent and hopeless? We stay alert. We keep reading all of the things. We keep talking to each other, maintain an healthy indignation, and we demand better together!

OK, right, I’m glad I’ve got all of that down on paper. So here goes... here are today’s blocks / lumps of jam. They’re raining down fast…