I would like to pick out some of the great comments and elevate them to the main page here. I will be doing the same with some of the hundreds of e mails and letters I have received, but don't worry, where you have asked for anonymity, your name will not show. They are worth reading.

The first is by Sue who is an NHS employee ....

I thought I'd write a note on your blog, not just as a lifelong friend, not just as the person whose children still need a father, but as an employee of an NHS trust. I'm an administrator (boo, hiss!). I help to organise an Outpatients Department in the North of England. I went into this job, as EVERYONE at grass roots level does in the NHS, because I love people, and genuinely want to assist them when they are at their most vulnerable. And I do, every single day, and so do my colleagues, medical or administrative. But we are tired, we are all almost broken with the weight of work that we have to do that is simply not patient-centred.The Government, in their wisdom, and surely with best intentions, set targets that we MUST adhere to;no Trust in the country is free from them. Just to demonstrate how crazy this is, let me say that our current target for cases of c.diff is 1 (yes, one) for this year. One? We do our best, but surely it's obvious that they should be examining the processes we have in place to defend patients from this infection would be better, not going nuts if we get more than 1. If we fail (fortunately at my Trust that's very rare) we actually get FINED. How does that work then? We get the money from the tax payers, we make a mistake (genuine or not doesn't figure), and then we have to take money out of the patient care coffers to pay the government (you and me) some money back.Single sex accommodation, MRSA screening, money being thrown around left right and centre...and none of it coming from government, all of it needs to come from existing budget. The local PCT tell us how many patients each year it will pay for us to treat. Magnificent guesswork! I wish I knew how many of you would develop cancer or a heart condition, or break your legs this year...I could come round and tell you to take care! If one or two more of you get sick, we don't get any money for you; but of course, we must treat you, or we fail another target. Do you see how this goes on?
Cumberland Infirmary have made an appalling error in Daniel's treatment, and are failing miserably to rectify the situation. Their board of Directors should be ashamed, and their senior clinicians (there will be a few on the board)need to ditch the 'doctor as god' thought processes. But if I had the energy, and the balls, I'd be digging a little deeper; this needs to go national...because you may think the Government have a handle on this, and that they have set up the right systems for the Trusts to work within...but you'd be wrong. Can you take it national Daniel? This may be the cause that your life was meant to champion.
See you on the picket lines!
Sue