A&E closures a fiasco

Why is anyone surprised that A&e departments are in crisis? here in West London the reason is obvious. On September 10 last year, the A&e departments at Central Middlesex and hammersmith hospitals both closed permanently. This was described in a leaflet as ‘A&e services are changing’.

This leaflet recommended people to go to another London A&e instead. Now these other A&es are much busier: what a surprise!

ALAN HAILE, London SW6.

Years of hospital and A&e department closures plus a substantial increase in the population equals chaos. Weren’t our politicians who attended some of the best public schools in the country taught elementary arithmetic?

BRIAN SYKES, Hornchurch, Essex.

WITh NhS england missing its fourhour A&e waiting time target by 2.4 per cent, the Scots Nats-run NhS missing its target by 4.5 per cent, the Labour-run NhS Wales missing its target by 11.2 per cent and the Northern Ireland hSC missing its target by a massive 14.5 per cent, isn’t it somewhat strange that there are no Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland hospitals announcing ‘major incidents’? I sense political skulduggery.

CHARLIE DOBSON, Bristol.

The main problem with hospital A&e services is that there are simply too many people in the country.

I also heard of a family in Birmingham who called ambulances more than 600 times in one year, and on only 11 of those occasions was a trip to hospital needed. These people should be made to pay or be prosecuted — and there are probably other instances of the same type.

GEORGE GRANT, address supplied.