FOR Ludlow campaigner Gill George the fight for the best possible NHS services must go on but she has no illusions about the extent of the challenge.

Gill George is an unlikely looking campaigner.

But this Ludlow resident is at the head of a campaign to defend the NHS in Shropshire although she is not sure that people realise just how much the institution created in 1948 is under threat.

She believes that at the core of the problem is a simple problem of lack of funding and says that Government claims about spending on the NHS include the use of smoke and mirrors not to mention double counting.

Although she has NHS chiefs in Shropshire in her sights her biggest complaint seems to be about a lack of honesty.

“It would help if they would admit that there is not enough money to provide the level of care that people need and expect,” said Gill George.

“It is the pretence that really annoys people and until there is honesty it will be hard to lobby for what is needed.”

But lobby is what she and the group she leads intends to do.

The cloud over the future of the NHS is not confined to Shropshire but she believes that the county has special problems that make things more difficult. This includes the ageing population.

“In general people will make most demands upon health care in their infancy and in later life,” said Gill George, who says that the age profile of Ludlow and south Shropshire creates special demands.

“Most people are well into their 50s and then things can start to go wrong and this continues into the 60s and 70s.

"But by the time we reach our 80s most people will have some kind of on-going health problem.”

People may be living longer but that does not mean that they do not become ill, especially in the autumn of their lives.

Added to this is the relative isolation of Ludlow and south Shropshire.

“Take the work of a district nurse as an example,” says Gill George.

“In a town or city, a nurse is likely to visit a number of people living fairly near each other but in a rural area there will be much more travel time between appointments. It is inevitable that a nurse in a rural areas will be less productive.”

Gill George believes that substandard health care is not a price that people in Ludlow and south Shropshire should have to pay for living in an isolated area.

She accepts that it will not be possible to have a centre like Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital at the end of every street but wants everyone to have ‘adequate’ health care.

As a minimum, she thinks everyone should be within half-an-hour of an acute hospital and expect an ambulance to arrive quickly if they are taken ill.

She does not accept that this minimum level of support is not possible in Ludlow and south Shropshire.

“Look at the health service people get in Scotland where communities can be much more isolated,” she said.

“The Scots show what can be achieved. Where there is a will there is a way.

“We need a proper national debate to determine what priorities are important to us.”

She believes that taking the fight and lobbying effectively is harder that it has ever been.

“The pressure on government comes when there is effective opposition and the Labour party is in a terrible mess,” she said.

Gill also believes the Brexit vote will be bad for health care by making the country poorer so there is less money to go around.

Fortunately, just because the fight is tough Gill and her group will not anytime soon be giving up fighting to defend the NHS in Shropshire.