Reform must cure NHS gravy train

THERE has been much comment made about NHS reforms. I don’t believe there have yet been any reforms, nor are any likely, without some severe sword-wielding on the part of the Government.

Andrew Lansley is fast getting out of his depth. For instance, take the ineffective and unnecessary Strategic Health Authority based in Leeds. Mr Lansley’s recent stone turning here has revealed the bad smell of self-serving by health administrators; in this instance 97 executive vehicles at a cost of £400,000.

No one will have to answer for this profligacy.

The gravy train of self-serving cohorts continues on just as before.

From: David H Rhodes, Keble Park North, Bishopthorpe, York.

A RECENT situation caused me to question Government/NHS profligacy (Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, April 27).

A friend has just had a knee cap replacement and has been given a zimmer frame to assist her walking.

I understand that on enquiring what to do with it when her knee is better she was informed that the hospital doesn’t want it back, presumably for hygiene reasons.

How much does it cost the NHS for this piece of equipment with its limited life span? Surely the procurement department of the NHS should be thinking outside the box?

Why, for example, can’t the zimmer frames be subject to a high temperature steam clean ready for re-utilisation, or alternatively a cheaper version made out of recycled plastic instead of the current metallic frame? All areas of cost savings must be rigorously pursued so that funds within the NHS are available for proper utilisation.

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme.

IT seems clear and quite beyond dispute that a specialised children’s heart unit would be best placed in some readily and widely accessible central location, rather than away out on either coast (Yorkshire Post, April 28).

The NHS seems unable or unwilling to accept this simple fact, and the danger remains of the transfer of this important facility from Leeds either to Newcastle or Liverpool.

But we in Yorkshire are not helpless bystanders; Yorkshire is both populous and powerful. How much would it cost to keep this unit in Leeds? And how about an appeal to ensure that it stays here?

Abstain out of principle

From: Dai Woosnam, Woodrow Park, Scartho, Grimsby.

I URGE readers not to vote in the referendum on AV. But please don’t abstain because of apathy, but abstain because of your total conviction. A conviction that says that whichever way the vote goes, you still will change nothing.

For you perpetuate a system where we are having to pay a myriad of supernumerary representatives in the Palace of Westminster.

In the two houses on Capitol Hill, America has 535 elected senators/representatives. The UK has one fifth the population of the USA, so we should have pro rata, 107 members in our two houses: say 72 in the Commons, 35 in the Lords. Quite a realistic number given the over-abundance of councillors in the UK: folk who conduct their own surgeries and thus can easily report to a regional MP. My own village alone has three councillors.

Instead of which we have – wait for it! – an astonishing 1,442 members in our two equivalent houses; 650 in the Commons, and 792 in the Lords. Well over 13 times the American rate. Thus, to vote yea or nay, is just perpetuating a nonsensical drain on the nation’s resources.

From: Karl Sheridan, Selby Road, Holme-on-Spalding Moor, East Yorkshire.

AS we near polling day with not only the huge question of selecting a Yes or No vote on the AV referendum – which incidentally has been muddied by most of the political parties to the point of utter confusion – we have the local elections to deal with.

Now in my 60s, I have always been keenly interested in politics and have always used the right to vote which our forefathers fought so hard to obtain for us all.

Sadly, each General Election brings up the same three political parties containing the same tired career MPs desperate to remain in power with the same tired old rhetoric rephrased and rehashed.

However, my real fear is that people are quietly being hoodwinked into adopting the American style of election – that of voting for the personality at the head of the party, rather than sensibly voting for the policies of that party.

From: David Gray, Liversedge, West Yorkshire.

SO the secret about Alternative Voting is now out of the bag! It is not proposed because it is a fairer system, but because it is likely to favour those who are promoting it.

This was revealed by Ed Miliband. Asked why the Labour Government had not arranged a referendum on the subject in their 13 years in office, even though they had promised one, Ed Miliband’s reply was that when Labour were first elected in 1997 they had such a large majority that there was no need to change the system at that time.

If it is fairer now, it would have been fairer then.

The reply given shows that it is nothing to do with fairness, but to do with having a better chance of getting elected by whatever change in the rules suits the proposers.

From: Rodney Leach, Chairman of the NO to AV campaign.

LIB Dem MEP Edward McMillan-Scott wrote (Yorkshire Post, April 29) that I “was given an office in Downing Street”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have been given no such office. From the start, the NO to AV campaign has been both physically and politically distinct from the Conservative Party.

What Mr McMillan-Scott was trying to do was to mislead voters by implying that NO to AV was a right-wing campaign, whereas in fact the No campaign enjoys the support of the majority of Labour MPs, peers, councillors, voters and four major trade unions. This sort of tactic smacks of desperation.