Our precious. Your precious. Everyone's precious NHS.

It was around this time eleven years ago that my daughter Maggie (that's her at Malham Cove last spring) was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. It was a frightening time for all of us. She had just had her first birthday when her jaw began to swell and distort, disfiguring her face, exploding the bones in her jaw and sending her teeth in all directions. She cried in pain almost constantly for weeks. It was a while before she was correctly diagnosed and was able to receive treatment and I can remember standing at the kitchen sink, crying myself with the worry of the unknown as I listened to Joanne upstairs trying to comfort her. Without knowing what it was or what it would become, we had no idea what turn our lives would take.

Why am I telling you this? Because the rest of the story is all good news, that's why. And the reason it is good news is because of the NHS. This is the NHS that cares for its patients, that pulls out all the stops to save lives, that offers support and help and the world's greatest collection of knowledge and expertise and charges nothing for it. This is the NHS of a society that cares about each and every one of us equally, that is motivated by society and the good that it needs to survive. It is the NHS that is based on the principles of decency and fairness and the greater good.

It is the NHS that is worth fighting for. Or at least getting off our arses and voting for.

And that's not the NHS of privatisation and profit and corporations or an NHS that is governed by people who care for naught but money. It is the NHS of the people, our precious.

Let me tell you now of the wonderful things that the NHS did for us. For a start they saved Maggie's life, which is good enough in itself. The NHS also provided us with a private room on an oncology ward in Bristol for six months while she received treatment. They explained to me what oncology was too. They fed Maggie, changed her bedding and gave her a six month long course of very expensive chemotherapy. They provided a bed in that private room so that Jo or I could sleep next to her each and every night, so that she would never be alone. They provided round the clock care. They paid for Maggie to have operations to insert Hickman lines, and to remove them afterwards.

When the time came for Charlotte to be born (Jo was 3 months pregnant when Maggie was diagnosed) the NHS provided another room for Jo, a midwife and all the know how and knowledge to deliver Charlotte into our lives safely. The NHS also provided a team to extract stem cells from Charlie's umbilical cord to put into cold storage should Maggie ever need them. They did that for free too. The NHS also paid for nurses Charlie and Charlotte - who gave Charlie her name - so that they had the knowledge and skill to save Maggie's life when she had an anaphylactic reaction to a new chemotherapy drug. The NHS paid for their wages and their training. And again, it cost us nothing. That really is a truly wonderful thing. We often wonder how much it would have cost in any other country.

The NHS also paid for all of Maggie's follow up treatment in the years since. It paid for monthly check ups for the first few months, then the six monthly check ups, now the annual ones. It paid for people to scramble when we had worried moments, when Maggie was ill or down in the years since. It pays for absolutely everything.

Jo was ill with the stress of all of this (understandably so) and - guess what - the NHS paid for her treatment for ulcerative colitis and it pays for the medication she still needs. And now that Jo has gone back to college to train as a nurse - so that she can give a little back to the system - it pays for her fees and gives her a bursary to help make the hard years of study a little easier.

I also owe an awful lot to the NHS, besides our health. When we were in hospital Jo and I vowed that we'd buy another camper if we got out intact. We did. So all the good things that have happened since are down, in part, to the NHS too.

We owe the NHS so much beyond the small payments we make via our taxes. We owe it our lives, our smiles, our daughter, our future. So how could we stand by and allow it to be broken up and dismantled, sold off and turned into another greedy, selfish corporation?

Yes so it's sometimes different. yes the wards are understaffed and staff under appreciated. yes so sometimes you need to shout loudest to be heard or have to wait to be seen. So what? It is facing tough times. Despite this there are still many, many people who, like us, owe their lives to its very existence.

Apparently there is an election coming up.  I shall be voting with my heart and soul and life in the hope that the rest of the UK does the right thing and votes to keep the NHS in public hands. Because we all owe our lives to this precious institution. My precious, your precious, everyone's precious NHS.

Thank you.

BTW Maggie is in full remission and has been for 10 years. We were lucky.