RIP Neil Armstrong RIP a generation of dreams but not the dreamers.

Last weekend we awoke to the sad news that the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong had died.

For many at ND Central this was a man we first knew when we watched in glorious black and white him land on the moon back in 1969 in the early hours of a morning when TV was not 24 hours a day and channels could be counted on less fingers than a hand. These are images that will stay with us for they represented the achievement of a dream namely that of man to break free from earth to another planet.

In the Sixties there was a get to and go mentality and the American president at that time, although flawed, encapsulated this when he said his ambition was to put a man on the moon and get him back within a decade.

He did not live to see this but several generations did and it was achieved using many nationalities some formerly hostile to the USA but it was achieved using the best minds in order to crack a problem. Such things are not cheap but their legacy sits daily on all of our desktops, and our mobile phones where we have more computing power there than was required to land on the moon and more importantly to bring Apollo 13 back to Earth.

Consider President Blair and his huge failed Apollo project the NHS computer system. He no doubt thought that project Tony would achieve a similar outcome but in contrast to JFK he did not employ any of the best brains in the world. This is why GPs throughout the land take longer to change between screens on their computers every day than did the radio transmissions take from the moon and back in the 1960s.

It has cost at least £ 12 billion but no one has landed on the moon brought back some moon rock and we have an NHS IT system that the world must regard as a joke.

Our respects go out to the family of Neil Armstrong who seems to have been a quiet man who just got on with his job whether as a military pilot, a test pilot or an astronaut. The dreams we were brought up with of jet cars and trips to Mars have long gone but many similar ideas fortunately are still alive in the brains of those who think beyond this earth.

The health service is full of them but these ideas are not fostered and funded by the likes of JFK they are instead scuppered on the rocks of retards called Blair and his followers who feel that top down is best and ability is second best to political dogma.

Quality top down is best and when combined with quality bottom up implementation it is unbeatable. Unfortunately British politicians of all Party's at present do not do quality top down and discourage any form of quality bottom up innovation, which is why something more expensive than the Apollo space program has failed. So will GP commissioning.

Thanks Neil for your inspiration it has left many of us to strive per ardua ad astra since seeing your first steps on the moon for we know that not all of us can be astronauts. It does not stop us from trying harder to do better if only for our patients.

Praise be to the Party for ensuring that excellence in any field is just a dirty word to be stamped on. Thank you Neil for going one step better than this and one step further too than anyone before you. A unique achievement.