NHS and local government

From: Robert and Sarah Holland, Skipton Road, Cononley, Keighley.

AT last the Government is looking at plans for the future of social care in England. Downing Street is considering that NHS should take social care over from local councils.

This may bring welcome relief to many, including the managers who run care homes now and to ourselves in our 80s.

But we do not trust this Government to run NHS and social care. The NHS should be part of local government.

The Government was “reckless”, says an all-party group of MPs, when discharging untested patients from hospitals to care homes and lied about it (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, August 1).

They failed to start effective track and trace in time, failed to deliver PPE adequately and neglected the expertise of local public health doctors.

Staffing issues have been neglected for years.

England is far too centralised now.

Regional authorities should be established, sometimes led by elected Mayors as in West Midlands and Greater Manchester.

Yorkshire needs one regional authority for this and many other purposes.

Many pensioners like ourselves can afford to pay, and will be happy to pay, National Insurance for these services if they are adequately resourced, the staff are treated properly and they will definitely be reliable.

From: Steve Wilson, Lenton Villas, Idle, Bradford.

THE issue of social care and how to fund it is one of the biggest challenges we face.

It requires a cross-party approach merged with business too, where politics and ideologies are put aside for the common good. There is no single way to crack this nut; equally, there is no getting away from the fact that we will all have to pay more if we are to reach a workable longterm solution.