Why would anyone believe a word of what Gordon Brown says about the NHS?

Gordon Brown is at it again (“NHS would be ‘in trauma’ if Scotland was independent”, 2 July).

Why should anyone believe a word of what this man says about the NHS when it was his PFI system for building which has burdened the NHS with endless debt, so that, for example, the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, cost about £184 million to build, but the NHS will have to pay more than £1 billion over the course of its life, and even then it will remain the property of the builders.

This is the man who claimed in his notorious harangue on BBC TV, just before the referendum, that, in an independent Scotland pensioners would lose their pensions, Scotland would be thrown out of the EU, Scottish transplant patients would no longer get organ donors or blood transfusions, all business would flee and there would be armed guards on the border.

All of the above have been shown to be lies but the threats were enough to scare a great many people into voting No.

This is the man who, as Chancellor, due to his “light touch” on bank regulation, succeeded in creating the greatest banking failure in the last 100 years and then bailed out the banks with our taxes and by printing billions of pounds for them.

The result, of course, was the last ten years of austerity. The man is a self-regarding failure whose pontification should be ignored.

JAMES DUNCAN Rattray Grove, Edinburgh

Rather than returning to his 2014 Project Fear script, Gordon Brown should at last apologise for burdening our NHS health boards with his expensive PFI scam, including the £1.5 billion repayment bill for Edinburgh Royal Infirmary that cost far less to build.

Gordon Brown also misunderstands the Growth Commission’s findings as it specifically rules out austerity. However the report is based on a very ultra-cautious growth rate of 0.5 per cent, which is lower than Scotland’s current growth, and assumes zero oil and gas revenues for its analysis at a time when the Brent Crude price is almost $80 a barrel and would contribute several billion a year to a Scottish government.

Brexit remains a much greater threat to the NHS than independence ever could be. Scotland is currently underperforming, and there is little reason to doubt that this will continue to be the case unless change is made. Under successive Westminster governments the UK’S woeful performance on income per head, productivity and regional inequality is holding Scotland’s economic performance back. Staff numbers in our best performing NHS system in the UK are increasing and investment is increasing as a share of the Scottish government’s overall budget.

This might explain, despite mostly negative media coverage, why patient satisfaction with Scotland’s NHS is overwhelmingly positive and contributes towards the latest opinion poll results which show the SNP 14 per cent ahead of the Tories with Labour back in third place.

FRASER GRANT Warrender Park Road , Edinburgh

Gordon Brown’s intervention in the running of the Scottish NHS is timely.

Under the SNP’S “guidance”, the NHS has steadily declined. Nicola Sturgeon’s too little, too late reshuffle has underlined the extent to which Scots have been led up the garden path.

Almost the first utterance of the new Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, has been to slam the current child mental health referral scheme as “completely unacceptable”.

This problem was flagged up numerous times by Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrats to Ms Sturgeon at First Ministers Questions only to be batted off with her usual caustic put downs. Mr Rennie was right, Ms Sturgeon was wrong. This sums up the current state of the NHS in Scotland. Not safe in the SNP’S hands. (DR) GERALD EDWARDS

Broom Road, Glasgow