Some public sector workers are switching support to the opposition Conservatives in Britain's May 6 election despite the huge extra resources the ruling Labour Party has poured into education and health.
The trend is surprising because the Conservatives have in the past been seen as hostile to the state-run National Health Service (NHS), although they now insist they are staunch defenders of the service which employs 1.7 million people.
The centre-right Conservatives also pledge to cut public spending more deeply than Labour would as part of a drive to rein in Britain's budget deficit, set to exceed 11 percent of Gross Domestic Product this year.
"I am deeply unhappy about what Labour have done, other than the money that they have put into the health service," said Simon Newell, 53, a consultant in paediatrics in the northern English city of Leeds.
He complained of the growth in "pointless management and unnecessary bureaucracy and the amount of time that all of us spend filling in forms", instead of caring for patients.
Newell, who indicated he had voted Labour in the past, said he favoured the Conservatives this time. "I have no feeling at all that the Tory party (Conservatives) would do anything damaging to the health service," he said.
The last Conservative governments under prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the 1980s and 1990s introduced market-based reforms to the NHS as part of their philosophy of rolling back the frontiers of the state, which led to the privatisation of many formerly state-owned sectors.
Labour's Tony Blair tapped into public concern over the poor state of the health service in 1997, telling voters on the eve of his election they had "24 hours to save the NHS" and accusing the Conservatives of planning to privatise the service, which offers healthcare free at the point of delivery.
Since then, Labour - which founded the NHS in 1948 - has poured billions of pounds of extra money into the health service and education.
Under Labour, spending on health and education has increased from 10.1 percent of national income in 1996/97 to 14.8 percent in 2010/11, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies says. New university and hospital buildings have sprung up around Britain, the number of university students has expanded sharply and Labour says there are tens of thousands more doctors, nurses and teachers than there were in 1997. Waiting lists and times for operations, once a major concern, have fallen and doctors' and nurses' has increased.
Despite that, there are questions over whether the huge new investment in health has been spent wisely and doctors and teachers complain about bureaucracy and government-set targets.
The future funding of schools, health and police is a crucial election issue. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party has promised to protect front-line services in all three areas despite the deficit. The Conservatives, who have led in most recent opinion polls, have pledged real-term annual increases on health spending but not on education or policing.
The Conservatives have promised a one-year freeze in public sector pay, except for the lowest paid, in 2011. Labour would impose a one percent cap on basic public sector pay rises in 2011/12 and 2012/13.
The Conservatives' modernising leader David Cameron has tried hard to dispel voters' doubts about his party's commitment to the NHS, citing his admiration for the care his disabled son Ivan received before his death last year.
After 13 years of Labour rule, some health workers are ready to give the Conservatives a chance to run the vast NHS. "I don't approve of what's happened under the Labour Party, said speech therapist Louise Bisset, 39. "Although the service to the public has improved, as a worker it's actually got a lot more challenging," said Bisset, who said she had voted Labour in the past but planned to vote Conservative this time.
The city council, hospitals and universities are big public sector employers in Leeds, a city of 750,000 that elected mostly Labour members of parliament at the last election in 2005.
On the city's sprawling university campuses, there is trepidation about what the future holds for education. Barry Parsons, a biochemistry professor at Leeds Metropolitan University, said public services would be cut no matter who won the election.
"You can see in this university that there will be some cuts. Although they've got a budget for next year, it's one where they've cut buildings," Parsons, 60, said. "I think when people leave, they won't be replaced." "I voted Labour in the last 10 years ... My inclination is to vote Conservative only because a government which has got us into a mess should not be rewarded," he added.
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