Labour was always going to get into a political hole over the National Health Service once in office because of the public's totally unrealistic expectations. The surprise was that the digging took so long.

The NHS was created more than half a century ago just after the war when most people were simply grateful to be alive and no one expected much more than free treatment when they were in poor health.

We now have a multi-billion pound organisation so greedy for cash that if you doubled spending tomorrow, there would still be complaints from people on waiting lists and from staff they were not being paid enough.

No wonder the last Tory Government was pilloried for its record on the NHS, even though it consistently spent more each year even in real terms.

I don't doubt Tony Blair's sincerity in wanting to improve the service but simply throwing more money at the NHS will not work.

All of us, not just the politicians, need to think afresh about the health service.

Too many people are looking at it through NHS rose-tinted spectacles, believing it to be the best example in the world.

Nye Bevan and his followers fondly imagined the NHS could be provided free and several of them resigned in protest when prescription charges had to be introduced as soon as the early Fifties. Dental charges have been accepted for many years. Why not charges for other parts of the NHS?

It seems ridiculous that NHS hospitals should be providing a full and free hotel service to patients who are saving money on not eating and drinking at home.

With the usual exemptions, which would be numerous, there's no reason why the rest of us shouldn't pay for hospital food and that might provide an incentive to improve it.

There's also far too much free transport being provided within the NHS with millions of pounds being wasted on people who either do not really need it or who could well afford to pay.

When patients are lying around on trolleys in hospitals for hours if not days because there simply are not enough beds available, it's time to examine whether the NHS should cover certain routine operations at all such as hernias or varicose veins.

There must also be a compelling case for investigating whether some of these routine operations could be carried out in private hospitals and generally whether private health insurance should be greatly expanded.

When billions of pounds are spent annually on drugs and the companies providing them are among the biggest in the world, rigorous attention needs to be given as to whether the NHS, as Europe's largest customer, is getting a good deal.

You have only to look at glossy company advertisements in the journals read by doctors to understand how much money is involved.

The strain on the NHS, as we live longer, as advances in medicine become more wonderful, and as our demands grow, is enormous. It cannot be met purely from the public purse, even in booming times such as now.

l DAN, the Department of Appropriate Names, was delighted to learn this week that the press officer of the

Sussex Ornithological Society is Ron Pidgeon.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.