There isn’t much good news concerning our NHS these days.

Junior doctors have been locked in a long and bitter dispute with the Health Secretary that has done nothing to enhance the reputations of either side or strengthen public confidence.

We have seen in the last few days the coroners of England and Wales taking the unusual step of issuing a joint statement warning that 35 recent deaths can be linked to under performance by the NHS ambulance trusts. Our local ambulance service, the South West Ambulance Trust, has some of the worst performance statistics in the country.

Waiting times for treatment in a NHS hospital are worsening and A & E departments are under such pressure that we are strongly advised to try to avoid attending A & E and use the 111 telephone system instead. That would be fine if the 111 system was working well , but anyone that has had resort to it, will probably find that it is not without its problems. I have seen published statistics that show a large percentage of calls to 111 are abandoned by the caller before satisfaction is received. I don’t blame the call-takers, it is the system that is flawed.

The NHS and local authorities have still not got their act together to solve the problem of bed blocking. Patients ready for discharge from hospital are delayed in doing so by the fact that the local council is slow to provide the care package needed in the home.

Then we come to the GPs. Again, we see an NHS service if not yet in crisis close to being so. We are told that there is reluctance for doctors to come into general practice. The knock on effect of this is to make it difficult for patients to be seen quickly by a GP and a two weeks wait for an appointment is not uncommon.

Even against this background of a NHS in turmoil, the way the NHS serves the mentally ill seems to be in a particularly disgraceful state of neglect. So poor is mental health care that the rest of the NHS looks comparatively healthy. I heard a broadcast interview with a psychiatrist recently in which he didn’t say that the NHS mental health service was near to collapsing, he said that it already had collapsed! This newspaper has carried a report recently about a mental patient being locked up in a police cell locally because there was no NHS facility able to provide accommodation and immediate treatment.

Of course, at the root of all the problems I have mentioned and the many others that I do not have space to mention, there is the question of money and resources. Although the government has promised to look after the NHS and is pouring extra £billions into it, the NHS is running with a deficit larger than ever before. The pressure created by this situation no doubt explains why I have heard and read statements very recently by senior NHS managers and senior medical staff claiming that perhaps the time has come to review the NHS policy of providing treatment that is free at the point of delivery.

However, bringing such a suggestion into Parliament for debate will cause a massive political storm and I can’t see any prime minister having the courage to allow it even cursory consideration. If those making the suggestion that we should be billed for NHS treatment intended to shock, they have certainly succeeded where I am concerned.