End the bed shortage

THE crisis in the NHS was entirely predictable. Most of the NHS budget goes on nursing pay.

Cutting it, as successive governments have demanded, means cutting nurses, cutting nurses means cutting beds and cutting beds means trolleys in corridors.

As a consultant anaesthetist for more than 40 years, I and my colleagues have begged for this bed shortage to be reversed.

However, the answer has been yet more managers, so the smaller number of beds can be used ‘efficiently’ — something, of course, that clinicians are incapable of.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Dr PETER HILTON, Swansea.

THE NHS chief executive has said the service can’t deliver on its basic charter (Mail). In any other business the person in charge would be sacked. If a supermarket fails to deliver profits, the board doesn’t blame the Business Secretary, it demands the resignation of the top man.

It’s a good job for the NHS boss that he isn’t a Premier League manager — he’d have gone months ago. ST JOHN COX, Taunton, Somerset.

WHILE it is correct to point to waste, mismanagement and uncontrolled immigration as reasons for the NHS crisis (Letters), they are not solely to blame.

Too many families are no longer prepared to care properly for their elderly parents. Ethnic minority communities put the rest of us to shame in this regard. The state cannot be a cradle-to-grave carer for us all. We must look to ourselves to care for those whom we love. BARRY GREEN, Yateley, Hants.

CHIEF executives of hospital trusts should accept more responsibility and accountability for the crisis.

These highly paid people are employed to run a business, but all they do is bleat about underfunding and lack of Government support. Throwing money at a problem brings out the worst in people.

Meanwhile, the doctors and nurses on the front line are doing what they always do and caring for us when we need them. TOM RICHARDSON, Knaresborough, N. Yorks.

HOW can the NHS need more funding when money is wasted on adverts telling people to use a tissue when they sneeze? SEAN NUGENT, London N14.