I've been thinking about the NHS again, it is hard not to right now what with it being in the news virtually every day. So right at the start I will set my stall out, I still believe that an independent cross party commission is needed to properly sort out the future of the NHS. I said at the start of my NHS blogging that I didn't believe politics alone could sort out the NHS, and recent events have certainly proved that.

NHS Bursaries are all I have been talking about for the last 24 hours, but up until 2 years ago I had no idea what they were or even that they existed. However, I now know just how important student bursaries are to those studying healthcare degrees, and as a student nurse, I have experienced this first hand.

Money, money, money. The NHS is short of it. Less doctors, less nurses and less beds per person than almost all of the EU is simply a manifestation of a lack of money. For more headline grabbing stats just Google OECD healthcare report and you can see the NHS is struggling to balance the books and this is hurting outcomes. Today's announcement from the spending review will provide some temporary relief but the underlying funding problems still exist. 

So as I sit here typing this, I'm wondering exactly which direction this blog will go. I wanted to try and get over how all the NHS news stories look from a patient point of view. The thing is I didn't want this blog post to concentrate on just one area, but in a way that is the whole point. If you listen or watch the news or read the newspapers it will be impossible to miss the stories that are constantly hitting the headlines. When an area gets such constant coverage then you truly know something isn't right.

The junior doctor contract is causing a lot of controversy for many reasons, but I would like to focus on safeguarding the number of hours worked. The government seek to remove the existing safeguards contained in the current junior doctor contract.

Forgive the length, but I’ve never felt so moved to put my thoughts down on paper (or computer!) so whether this gets read, shared or completely ignored…I still feel better for writing it.

I’ve seen so many stories as of late, lamenting the state of the NHS. The spiralling debt, the lack of cleanliness, the quality of care etc. Now, I’m not in a position to confirm or deny any of the above, nor do I have the insight of working in, or knowing someone closely who works in, the NHS but I would like to pen this open letter to Jeremy Hunt, Simon Stevens, or anyone else who has responsibility for decision making or setting the strategic direction of the NHS.

Carl Hall, an NHS Survival patient representative, lays out why he supports the call for a cross-party independent commission on the NHS.

The momentum is gathering and many hundreds of concerned public and professionals have been using our free platform to write to their MPs. Here we share some examples of what you have been saying.