LETTER: Please treat NHS better all the time

As a nurse and having worked for more that 30 years here in Walsall for the NHS, I have had to endure many examples of abuse, attacks, staff shortages, pressures from management, physical threats in corridors whilst being expected to function without ever questioning this.

After all that time I have worked through the current crisis and found the clap on Thursdays a pointless and empty gesture for all those years of service.

Most of the time we were at work anyway when it happened. There was little or no acknowledgement for our work over all that long period and often it felt that we were doing a job that was never appreciated and only brought complaints. This clapping in the street did not really wipe away those grim years of putting up with all those conditions.

Personally I would rather that the public treated me, and for that matter each other, with regard when we pass in the street or in shops – instead of what happens at the moment when they avoid you with such exaggerated body language as if you had the plague or as if you were some kind of leper. That is happening on a daily basis, and shows a particularly distasteful streak in our society at present which I think will be difficult to shake off when all this is over.

Mark Dabbs, Walsall