Bloated NHS is on the road to nowhere

I NOTE that Jeremy Hunt is proposing an increase in income tax which will, allegedly, be “hypothecated” (to use Hunt’s jargon term) to the NHS.

This means that the extra tax would, ostensibly, be allocated, exclusively, to the NHS. Everyone knows that any extra income tax will go directly to the Treasury, which will simply spend the additional money as it sees fit. Jeremy Hunt is living in cloud cuckoo land. He is simply giving a sop to the public. I draw a parallel with road tax, most of which, as every motorist knows, is not spent on the roads.

As a former employee of the NHS, I wish to make the following observations:

Firstly, as I stated in my previous letter to the Western Mail (February 7), the NHS has a bloated and overpaid administration. Cutting their numbers would pay for more front-line staff, like doctors and nurses. Of course, this will never happen. Administrators are far more important than front-line staff. Keeping administrators in post is more vital than saving life. Even Jeremy Hunt knows this.

Secondly, this country seems to have unlimited resources in the form of foreign aid. Some of these could be diverted to the NHS. If Cameron’s foreign aid law needs changing, then so be it. It is unfortunate that Cameron and May much prefer giving money to foreign countries than to the NHS, which has had a particularly hard winter. I doubt that the position of the NHS is going to improve much in the near future, if present trends continue.

Thirdly, I consider that we pay far too much tax already in this country. Why not, for example, cut non-essentials, like the £300-a-day allowance to members of the House of Lords?

I am not hopeful about the future of the NHS. On present trends, it will cease to exist within five to 10 years. Is that what we want? Dr Cynlais Jenkins Tonypandy