Kiss of life for NHS

I AGREE that the NHS doesn’t need infinite amounts of money thrown at it. What it requires is to get back to basics — quickly.

My career started with eight weeks in a school of nursing; then I was on the wards, learning at the bedside by working alongside experienced nurses.

I worked my way up to become a

sister in a neonatal unit, but had to leave early because I was told I needed to have a degree.

The rot set into the NHS when nursing became a university-led career and cottage hospitals were closed. We need to return to a network of community hospitals, pay carers a better wage and get trainee nurses onto the wards.

J. BIRCH, Camborne, Cornwall. IN THE 1970s, I was a member of the League of Friends of a cottage hospital and maternity hospital in Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.

We fought long and hard, with overwhelming local support, to keep these well- run hospitals open, but to no avail.

Bureaucrats had other ideas and they were closed ‘in the interests of economy and efficiency’. One became a country hotel and the other a private residence.

People have to travel miles to a regional centre. With the NHS in such a poor state, should we not revert to the old ways? GORDON MORRIS,

Southwick, Wilts.