Managers thrive to the cost of NHS

I COME in contact with people who work in the NHS and they all tell me that the organisation is awash with managers. It appears that there are managers to manage managers.

If the money was spent on medical staff instead of management, then the hospitals would be able to give the service for which it was once famed.

I am afraid that Margaret Thatcher did us no service 
when she put non-medical staff in to take control of the NHS instead of those, with medical knowledge, who knew of the essential needs and in fact supplied them.

From: Dr Robert Heys, Bar Lane, Sowerby Bridge.

RALPH Rennard (The Yorkshire Post, December 29) rightly draws attention to delays in A&E departments caused by the increasing population of recent years.

This development is not, unfortunately, confined to A&E.

Waiting times for non-accidental conditions requiring hospital assessment and often admission for treatment are 
also rising in fact because of the many foreign immigrants attracted to the UK for treatment on the NHS, not available 
or too expensive in their homelands.

This situation has been exacerbated by the closure of many hospital beds in Britain as an economy measure – exemplified here in Calderdale where I worked for many years as a consultant gynaecologist.

From: Trev Bromby, Sculcoates Lane, Hull.

SORE throat? Tickly cough? Tight chest? Short of breath? Then rush out and buy any well known brand of elixir which claims to cure or alleviate all or some of these symptoms.

These “remedies” are almost guaranteed to do you no good but you will feel you have made an effort, an expensive, fruitless one – but an effort!

Information trail goes cold

From: William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.

THE effect of the Freedom of Information Act has been salutary, as Rob Waugh argues (The Yorkshire Post, December 31), but there is an obvious and fundamental requirement for the information requested to exist.

My experience in this respect has been unfortunate. Several of my requests for information have failed because of a deficiency in this respect.

In one case, all negotiations which interested me were carried out by phone, although they were of serious public import. In a more recent case not only had all records been destroyed, but no officer had any recollection whatsoever of relevant matters which took place as recently as 2009, and vitally concerned a number of contracted persons.

Is there not a danger that some public bodies, less scrupulous perhaps, might see advantage and safety in following these inadvertent examples?

Just playing party politics

From: Bob Watson, Baildon

ALISTAIR Darling is the latest in a long line of Labour politicians queuing up to criticise plans put forward by Commons Leader William Hague on the subject of English votes for English laws (The Yorkshire Post, December 31). Sadly, it is quite obvious that all this criticism is nothing whatsoever to do with the matter in hand, but everything to do with ways in which the Labour party can try and cling on to some sort of power, notwithstanding the will of the majority of the electorate.

These actions by those Labour politicians should surely be treated with the contempt they deserve.

No excuse for disability cuts

From: Andrew Dennis, St John’s Road, Harrogate.

TONY Hall, the North Yorkshire councillor responsible for Children’s Services, states recently that NYCC cannot provide the resources to help disabled children and that nearly a million pounds must be cut from the budget.

This will include removing grant support from an outward bound centre – thus reducing the opportunities for disabled children – reducing the access to social services and help to children with lesser disabilities by providing a named contact rather then constant support and reducing the availability of short term respite.

This will be replaced by a greater use of fostering to provide this service, which will incur an increase in spending of £ 300,000, so the overall saving will be slashed – very strange economics.

Coun Hall receives an extra £12,000 plus for being executive member for children’s services on top of his almost £9,000 basic allowance. Perhaps he should be considering cutting his taxpayer-funded salary? As a parent of a disabled child, I am appalled that the council is even considering more cuts to children’s services while maintaining levels of allowances that are immoral.

Absent friend

From: Harry Robinson, Cedar Drive, Keyworth, Nottingham.

RE your headline “Blair insists Miliband can win the Election”. If Ed Miliband has any sense, he will insist that Blair stays off the case. That would certainly enhance Mr Miliband’s chances of a win.