An instant flu jab at Boots is privatisation – and what is wrong with that?

sir – Yesterday, I passed a Boots and popped in to see if it could provide a flu jab. The pharmacist offered it there and then (in a consulting room).

Seven minutes later, I was back on the street fully inoculated on the NHS; no fuss, no appointment.

Is this what Labour plans to abolish, with other treatments at NHS expense by independent companies? John K Nesbitt

Lymington, Hampshire

sir – Labour promises to “remove all privatisation from the NHS”. Does that extend to private hospitals, private GPS, privately owned pharmacies, private patient transport services, private pharmaceutical companies and companies that provide the NHS with staff, life-saving equipment, clothing, dressings and food?

The greatest existential threat to the NHS is now the Labour Party. Gary Hughes

Waterlooville, Hampshire

sir – I retired four years ago as an NHS consultant surgeon. I kept a record of my hours spent with a pair of gloves on, actually doing the stuff that had taken almost two decades to get the hang of. I called it “gloves-on time”.

I had a standard three lists a week, each of four hours. The total average “gloves-on time” came to six hours 40 minutes. That’s about half the time an American surgeon spends operating. The causes are numerous, but they essentially come down to old-fashioned practices in a noncompetitive market.

Privatisation of the NHS, or some elements thereof, may be worth considering. Malcolm Binns

Pontefract, West Yorkshire

sir – In the past five years, members of my family and I have benefited from NHS treatment for broken bones, an emergency appendix operation, bowel and chest complaints and cancer.

At no time have we found the NHS unfit for purpose. The doctors, nurses and support staff have been beyond reproach. I fully support Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, in his request to parties not to make the NHS a political battleground based on half-truths (and probably, in some cases, outright lies). Kim Potter

Lambourn, Berkshire

sir – It is time to shoot the canard of privatising the NHS.

The Labour policy is, as ever, to protect NHS staff from other providers. In this respect, it puts NHS staff ahead of patients.

The Conservative view is to support the health of patients of the NHS by whatever means is affordable.

If privatising means getting drugs or equipment from outside Britain, this is reality. It is up to NHS negotiators to obtain the cheapest possible prices.

If private enterprises can do tasks at least as cheaply and effectively as more expensive elements of the NHS, this is to be applauded. Brian Parkhurst

Dorchester