As a cancer patient and retired GP, I am seeing first-hand how the NHS is struggling

‘All the NHS staff I talk to feel this government is allowing the NHS to fail so it can persuade the public that the system set up by Nye Bevan should be replaced by a private system.’ Photograph: JPagetRMphotos/Alamy

Last time I wrote to the Guardian was the day before the last election, when I was sitting with my daughter who was about to start cancer treatment. In that letter (11 December 2019), I said: “Save [the NHS] please, by voting tactically to avoid another minute of Conservative misrule.”

Unfortunately, I am yet again in hospital, this time as the patient starting chemotherapy. My GP saw me the day after I felt a lump, I was seen by the surgeon within the two-week cancer wait, and my diagnosis and treatment was planned within the next two weeks. But then I was told I would have to wait eight weeks to start chemotherapy.