HE has been caring for patients more than 30 years - and he still loves it.

Now this long-serving GP is finally hanging up his stethoscope after 32 years at Strensall Medical Practice, in York.

On the eve of his retirement, Dr Neil Moran said the NHS was still a "wonderful organisation" - despite its much-publicised problems.

"We don't praise it enough," he said. "When it works well, it works extremely well.

"I don't think we should grumble too much about things.

"As GPs, we have now got far better information systems. Having computerisation is brilliant - you've got all the information you need about a patient.

"The care hasn't changed, the interpersonal relationship hasn't changed. What's changed is the information. Doctors used to have little cards. You couldn't find important things in them - now you've got computerised records with important information highlighted on it."

Dr Moran qualified in Leeds in 1971, and did part of his training in Strensall. He then rejoined the practice in 1975.

When he first started the job, a GP's role was vastly different to what it is today. They had only five minutes with every patient - half the time allotted now. They also did out of hours work as a matter of course - it is now an optional extra.

Dr Moran said: "One of the biggest changes is not doing out of hours.

"For most of my career, I worked all day and then the night and the next day again - that's how we did it. The idea of the emergency doctor rota, and now the PCT providing out of hours cover, that's a really big change.

"The other thing that's changed a lot is the input of nurses. We used to give a lot of daily medication for things like diabetes and blood pressure - return medication when people aren't having a problem. That's now done by nurses and they're actually much better at it."

Dr Moran said there had also been huge social changes over the years, of which the most striking had been the increasing age of the population. Another was the rise in working mothers.

But even after so long, he said the job was still a "privilege".

He said: "I still love the job. I'm quite ambivalent about retiring. I still love it and I think it's a real privilege to care for people and for them to put their trust in us."