YP Letters: NHS bled dry by excessive spending

JUST who is in charge of NHS spending? I suspect not Jeremy Hunt but individual hospital authorities who need to take a long hard look at who is profiteering. Obviously no one “shopped around” for the best quote when ordering a £44,OOO toilet to be reportedly installed at the Department of Health.

This is part of the problem. No one seems to check on the best prices for medicines and equipment, when often these can be obtained cheaper on the high street.

A full-time ombudsman needs to be in place checking how NHS money is spent.

From: Donald Webb, Rothwell.

CARERS look after people with a large spectrum of disabilities, dementia being only one of them (The Yorkshire Post, August 12). Carers are not all in the 60-plus age group. Many carers have spent most of their adult life caring for a loved one, any help being thin on the ground.

You also see children having to take on this role. All carers have one thing in common; they are not valued by Theresa May and her Government. She should save her tears for carers, not for herself.

Silence of the harriers

From: Stephen Kershaw, Crookes, Sheffield.

INTENSIVE predator control on grouse moors will benefit ground nesting species such as lapwing and curlew. It would also benefit species such as hen harriers which are also ground nesting – if there were any.

England has space for over 300 pairs of hen harriers but just seven pairs tried (five in Northumberland and two in Cumbria) and only three succeeded in breeding this year.

There were none in Yorkshire, despite our having superb moorlands. Perhaps whoever dubbed grouse moors “the country’s best bird sanctuaries” could answer the question: where are they? Perhaps local gamekeepers could give us a clue?

From: Margaret Ellis, High Bentham.

I FEEL most strongly that grouse shooting (and all other blood sports) should be banned... as do 84 per cent of the British people.

Killing sentient beings for fun is the action of a psychopath.

Planners who lack goodwill

From: Michael Clynch, Ingbirchworth, Penistone.

THE Yorkshire Dales planning committee has authorised ‘enforcement action’ against the ‘jolly folly’ at the Forbidden Corner at Leyburn.

The organisation behind the building of this attraction clearly has no experience of planning committees or their professional officers.

The irony of this situation is that all the historic buildings in the towns and villages in the Dales were built well before the planning system was even thought of. The committees are formed of lay people who know nothing of architecture or history, smug in their ‘power’ and skilled at box-ticking with the support of their ‘officers’.

The appeal system is currently attempting to deal with 20,000 appeals a year and is very stressed.

This is because of constant nit-picking and planning refusals by planners who have no ability to manage the rules with a degree or judgement and goodwill.

The Socialist road to ruin

From: Cecil Crinnion, Sycamore Close, Slingsby, York.

FREE university education, increased social benefits (no bedroom tax), increased funding for the health service, increased social housing, nationalised banks, utility companies and transport, borrowing billions to improve roads and infrastructure.

Sound familiar? No it’s not the Labour Party manifesto, but the policy of the socialist government of Hugo Chavez that’s left Venezuela more or less destitute and stuck with social unrest and a left-wing socialist government the people cannot seem to get rid of.

This is a country that should be oil-rich. All you can say (at best) in defence of Mr Chavez, is he meant well (Bernard Ingham, The Yorkshire Post, August 16).

Blame for celebrity pay

From: Edward Grainger, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

REGARDING this celebrity culture we have created. The apparent excessively high sums being paid to the nation’s radio and television presenters have led to a number of letters to The Yorkshire Post.

My feeling is that the high sums are due mainly to the public’s perceived obsession with so-called celebrities to front both radio and television programmes 
to make us both listen and 
watch.

Using relative unknowns to do the job would, it is surmised, lessen the impact that the programme, so we, the public, are partly to blame for this.

Silent support

From: Margaret Town, Botham Hall Road, Huddersfield.

I WAS delighted to read the letter from Brian Sheridan (The Yorkshire Post, August 15) in response to Janet Berry. This is a sensitive issue but I am sure there are many supporters of Prince Charles, like myself, who remain silent rather than prolonging the Diana situation.

Time lady

From: Malcolm Peacock, Ash Tree Road, Bedale.

SO Doctor Who is now a lady! It seems our entire folklore is in danger.