Handling the strains that blight NHS

From: Dr Richard Vautrey, Assistant Medical Secretary, Leeds Local Medical Committee, Farrar Lane, Leeds.

YOU have highlighted the difficulties some patients have experienced in making appointments at their local GP.

Whilst you focus on some practices in Leeds, as the professional body which represents and supports all general practitioners in the city, we believe that it is important to recognise that all practices, including those highlighted, are working extremely hard to meet the growing needs of their patients. However they are doing this despite over a decade of funding pressures and the challenge to recruit and retain sufficient GPs and nurses.

There is a risk that articles such as this further demoralise hard working practices, but we hope that the citizens of Leeds will use this to campaign for more support and investment into general practice so that we can deliver the quality of service that all GPs strive for.

From: Nick Ville, Director of Policy, NHS Confederation.

THE NHS is seeing everincreasing numbers of patients in A&E and is buckling under the strain (The Yorkshire Post, February 15).

Despite the best efforts of frontline staff, the number of patients in England treated within target times at A&E reached significant lows.

Yet we should recognise that this is still an achievement for staff, despite us not meeting the target. We need to find a more sustainable way of providing care to an increasingly aging population with ever-more complex needs.

The new NHS Long Term Plan, with its emphasis on joined-up community care, is good news for patients, who should see some of this intense pressure ease.

From: Mr PL Taylor, Milner Street, Lockwood, Huddersfield.

WHY is the Government not discouraging people from consuming foodstuffs which are a health hazard? Are there too many vested interests in this country?

A healthy population would very much ease the pressures on an already overstretched NHS. Also a healthy population is a happy population and, importantly a productive population.

I am an average OAP – why can’t the people in positions of authority and responsibility not see the wood for the trees?