It was concern about the NHS that brought me into politics. Despite an unprecedented increase in funding, many who work in the NHS have been disappointed by the wasted opportunities they have witnessed over the past decade. As ever this Government is obsessed with micromanaging at every possible level because, if it can’t be counted, it doesn’t count in today’s NHS.

Many of the good things that happen in medicine just can’t be counted and sometimes, to try to do so actually makes patient care a great deal worse. Take, for example, the way that GPs are being ‘incentivised’ to treat depression. Somewhere, someone decided that good care must involve a questionnaire with numeric rating scales to manage depression and that this must be repeated at an obscure centrally imposed timescale. No matter that best practice is to follow up at 2 weeks or that patients prefer a doctor who listens rather than administers a tick box form. It is a charter for the detached and uncaring, for whom it is now easy to demonstrate ‘good care’ without ever engaging with distressed patients in an individual manner. This is not to say that rating scales should never be used; they can be helpful to try to review progress, or the lack of it, but there is a tendency with the current system to demoralise those doctors who give the best care, which will always involve extra time and approachability.

I do think that incentives have a role in improving care in key areas, but those aims must be driven by best practice and determined by local needs, not centrally imposed or based on out of date evidence.

Let's push for health care that is close to home, accessible and responding to our needs, rather than what is right for people living in Central London. That means accepting that in the South Hams, we need our Community Hospitals and the choice of both small and large general practices. We need to keep vital outreach services such as the Dartmouth paediatric clinic and ensure that everyone has access to an NHS dentist.

If I am elected as your MP, I will be one of a tiny minority of MPs with any frontline experience in the NHS. I also have a background in science and hope that my experience in both this and medicine will allow me to speak up for some common sense in healthcare.

On 11th January 2010 I had a meeting with Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Secretrary of State for Health. This is detailed in my DiaryMap.