The NHS is out of date

SIR – Ron Singer and 435 others (Letters, March 2) are correct in believing that the NHS is suffering its worst crisis. Indeed, the number of beds, doctors and nurses per head of population is less than in most developed countries. The proportion of GDP spent on health is also marginally lower.

However, if, as they imply, the NHS is the best model for delivering healthcare, then why hasn’t it been subsequently adopted in other European countries?

Any organisation with 1.4 million staff is bound to spend a large proportion of its money on administrators devising different targets, who then need further administrators to monitor them.

In most European countries, cancelling admissions because of a lack of beds is practically unknown, despite the plethora of private healthcare providers. Children do not die unnecessarily of common infections. Nor do mothers die because they could not afford a unit of blood.

Perhaps the European model is one to follow, rather than repeating the mantra that the NHS is the envy of the world.

We owe it to future generations to replace a healthcare system whose resources are now inadequate with a system more suited to the advances in medicine and medical technology that have taken place since 1948. Such a system needs to be run differently if it is to meet modern needs. Professor Rudolf Hanka Wolfson College, Cambridge