In a deeply chilling development, doctors and nurses are instructed to ask all patients over 75 if they wish to be left to die should they become terminally ill.

No, this is not the plot of a horror film, set in a dystopian future. Welcome to Britain, 2015.

Under NHS guidelines, nurses already cold-call older patients – and under-75s with serious conditions – asking if they have ‘thought about resuscitation’.

Leave aside that many who believe they won’t want their lives prolonged may change their minds as the end nears.

Could anything be more likely to frighten patients or make them feel under pressure to decline life-saving treatment?

In the sinister euphemism of the guidelines, the aim is to give everyone an agreed ‘end of life care plan’. But isn’t Professor Patrick Pullicino nearer the mark when he warns: ‘This is the thin end of the wedge of assisted suicide’?

In 2012, this paper spearheaded the campaign to phase out the Liverpool Care Pathway, the abuse of which hastened countless deaths, many in harrowing circumstances.

These guidelines must not be allowed to reintroduce the pathway by the back door. Everyone who respects dignity for the elderly should fight to scrap them.

Doctors are being told to ask all patients over 75 if they will agree to a 'do not resuscitate' order.

New NHS guidelines urge GPs to draw up end-of-life plans for over-75s, as well as younger patients suffering from cancer, dementia, heart disease or serious lung conditions.

As it happens, my late wife used to work as an auxiliary nurse in the operating theatres at Hillingdon in the 80's.

Even back then there was an unwritten understanding that once you reached 75 you had had your innings and resources were cut back in favour of younger people. I'm 50/50 whether I agree with it.

Isn't it strange how the same policies don't apply to the elite? Prince Philip is an example of one who has received specialist medical treatment when in his late 80s and early 90s. I haven't heard any reports of the Prince being asked to sign a Do Not Resuscitate order.

The elite like to look upon we ordinary mortals as economic entities, a usefulness that ceases to exist when we either retire or become too sick to work. We are then labelled beneficiaries and liabilities; when the grossly over-funded cosseted elitist benefit scroungers have never done a day's useful work in their lives.

We put in a full working life, paying our taxes and National Insurance, but when we reach that time in life when we may need some assistance for which we have paid dearly over the years, we are told that we are too old, too much of a burden, and too expensive to the State. But the medical and support services are readily handed out to anybody arriving from foreign lands, and who have never paid a penny into the system. Their 'human rights' have to be honoured.

We are told that there is no money to provide for our own needy, but we hear that there are £billions available to hand out as foreign aid to countries who have their own space programs and weapons of mass destruction.

We should not be asked by government agencies to sign a death form when we reach 75, or when we are considered to be a medical or social liability. The British Government should fulfil its primary responsibility and protect and defend the British people to the best of its ability – and that means putting the taxpaying British people first and foremost by keeping the political contract/promise of care from "cradle to grave". The British Government has a contract with the British people which it is blatantly and deliberately failing to honour.

I think it is obscene when we are told there is no money to provide good medical a social care when there are daily reports of NHS executives, politicians, and bankers receiving pay cheques and bonuses of eye-watering sums of money. It isn't money that is in short supply – it is good-will and old fashioned compassion for those in need that is missing. Greed by the elitist beneficiaries has stolen our resources – not my living too long past retirement.

The LibLabCON are all guilty of over-seeing elitist greed and the misappropriation of taxpayers' funds.

The NHS Competes in a Boat Race

Once upon a time, the NHS and a Japanese company decided to have a competitive boat race on the river Thames.
Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance.
On the big day, they were as ready as they could be.
The Japanese won by a mile!
Afterwards the NHS team became very discouraged by the loss and morale sagged. Senior management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, and a project team was set up to investigate the problem and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion: The problem was that the Japanese had eight people rowing, and one person steering. The NHS had one person rowing and eight people steering.

Senior management immediately hired a consultancy company to do a study on the team structure. Millions of pounds and several months later the consultancy company concluded that: Too many people were steering and not enough rowing.

To prevent loosing to the Japanese again next year, the team structure was changed to 'four steering managers, three senior steering managers and one executive steering manager'.
A new quality performance system was set up for the person rowing the boat to give more incentive to work harder and become a key performer.

"We must give him empowerment and enrichment, that ought to do it".

The next year, the Japanese won by TWO miles!

The NHS laid off the rower for poor performance, sold all the paddles and cancelled all the capital investment for new equipment.

They halted the development of a new boat, awarded high performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved to senior management.