Tories don’t care about NHS cure

■ SAJID Javid got the message wrong, trying to make a case for squeezing NHS funding amid a crisis in A&E departments.

He told healthcare leaders there is no quick cure to the crisis and even suggested funding must be scaled back from historic levels.

It came after NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard said it was hard to see the logjam in hospitals improving before winter as A&Es are full with ambulances backed up, leading to unprecedented and dangerous 999 waits.

Well, if there is no quick cure for the NHS, what about the £500k spent on a plane to take asylum seekers to Rwanda? Or the money spent refurbishing Boris’s flat? They can find the cash when they want, so come on, fund our NHS and pay the staff decent wages.

Dave Mellor, Warrington, Cheshire

■ The health secretary has said there is no quick fix for the NHS. Javid and the rest of this country know what the problem is – the NHS has been underfunded and underloved for a very long time. Too few doctors, nurses and wards. That’s why ambulances are queueing up, unable to hand over patients and why people are dying at home or on pavements waiting for help that doesn’t come. The bottleneck is at A&E and there are not enough beds. Fix it or go and take the rest of your useless government with you.

Tony Howard, Salford

■ I was very sad to read about the Swindon lady and her problems waiting for an ambulance – they are similar to my own experience recently in Poole. This cannot go on and Javid and Johnson need to wake up. If we have another Covid flare-up, they are in bigger trouble.

They need to give a decent pay rise to staff to improve morale and tempt people to work in the NHS. It needs a team to visit every NHS trust to monitor exactly what is needed and then deal with it.

J Jackson, Poole, Dorset

■ So the truth is out: this contemptible Tory government via Sajid Javid is out to cut funding of the NHS back from historic levels.

It sticks in the Tory craw that a Labour government brought and nurtured it into being against a backdrop of austerity.

Noam Chomsky, a respected American commentator, once said the way to get something out of public hands is to defund it, make people furious at the service it provides, then suggest that if it was privately run it would be fabulous.

Once it’s private it would never be public again. But Nye Bevan said “while there are folk willing to fight for the NHS it will always be there”. G Crawford, Gillingham, Kent

■ After Sajid Javid’s comments, I am even more convinced that this government is preparing for the wholesale privatisation of the NHS.

The NHS has suffered financial cutbacks, changes to training and poor decisions by successive governments, not least by the Tories since 2010.

If such a privatisation comes into being we will all be subject to mandatory medical insurance and full-cost dentistry, and we will also have to pay for visits to see our GPs, not to mention the prospect of higher costs for prescriptions.

Some very direct questions need asking of this government as before too long privatisation may be the only option left if the NHS is left to deteriorate any further.

Richard Roynane, Alton, Hampshire

■ Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on flights to Rwanda, fix the NHS. An hour to get through to a surgery then a lengthy wait for a call back and a phone diagnosis? Not good enough, Javid.

Who has the time to sit by a telephone all day?

John Newman Ashington, Northumberland