Stop blatant takeover of GP practices and NHS – Yorkshire Post Letters

SAD to read (The Yorkshire Post, September 14) that we are short of nigh-on 50,000 doctors and that this is particularly affecting the number of GPs.

Balancing act over GP appointments after patient told they had 12 months to live ‘over the phone’ – The Yorkshire Post says

Could this possibly be that many GP surgeries are being bought up by the large United States insurance firm Centene and that many GPs are now salaried rather than being independent practitioners?

Even here in Leeds this is happening. This firm is quite ruthless and closes surgeries that do not have enough patients to make them profitable. Surely this is a blatant takeover of our NHS and should be stopped as soon as possible and a return to these doctors becoming independent?

Maybe this would make these positions more attractive to those qualifying in medicine.

Meanwhile, what a great idea from regular reader Peter Hyde to use Army-trained HGV drivers to help with the delivery of goods held up due to the shortage of civilian drivers.

It’s a pity the Government – well, really their civil servants – can’t think outside the box to solve some of our problems as well as The Yorkshire Post 
readers can.

From: Peter Rickaby, West Park, Selby.

LABOUR keep crying “24 hours to save the NHS”. Boris Johnson conveys similar sentiments.

Billions in cash is handed to an organisation so top heavy with layers of bureaucracy that it is a wonder it doesn’t topple over.

Yet not one politician from any party has the guts to propose a root-and-branch reform to cull these non-medics to create a necessary degree of essential competence within this vital service.

And regarding vaccination levels within communities, why should a significant minority who decline to be jabbed hold back the majority who have been so?

Their lifestyle privileges should be limited.

From: John Riseley, Harcourt Drive, Harrogate.

THE step back from vaccination passports may be welcomed by those who see them as limiting our freedom or who complain they would be discriminatory.

If I wish to exclude from my home, say, unvaccinated people then that seems to me legitimate as an exercise of my freedom and as a form of discrimination.

Similarly for any premises, according to the wishes of the proprietor.

A nightclub owner is surely entitled to exclude the unvaccinated no less than those wearing trainers?

This freedom is essential to maintaining a range of different environments.

There will be some locations where the decision on access properly lies with local government and others (including entry to the country) where this role belongs to Government.

It is when Government mandates the use of passports where it is in no sense the proprietor that we may need to look to the defence of our liberties.

From: Janet Berry, Barfield Bar Lane, Hambleton.

AT York Hospital it is reported a patient was asked for his address – and he replied Aldi’s.

The doctor said but there were no houses at Aldi. The patient then replied that he slept by the bins at the back of the store.

Can someone explain how thousands of Afghans are staying in hotels and hundreds of refugees are being housed while this man and many others are forced to live on the street?

When will our Government learn that charity must start at home?

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

GOOD move to put Nadhim Zahawi, the Vaccines Minister, in charge of schools. But what took Boris Johnson so long?

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