Could food banks cope with yet more nurses?

■ Regarding Boris Johnson’s pledge to deliver 50,000 more nurses to the NHS (Metro, Thu) – and ignoring for a moment the known dishonesty of that figure – has anybody considered how the food banks would cope?

They’re already having to feed enough of our impoverished hospital staff as it is. Heaven only knows how the government expects to employ more nurses when they can’t even afford to pay the ones they’ve got now enough to live on – or how they expect to attract more when they’re struggling to retain the demoralised ones they do have. Julian Self, Milton Keynes

■ Nurses, similar to police officers, cannot simply be produced from thin air but have to be trained first.

Hiring nurses from outside the UK has always happened but with the uncertainty of Brexit, there has apparently been a reluctance from EU staff to either stay or come here. That’s why Brexit has to be sorted. Paul, West Midlands

■ My niece is a nurse, and is overworked and has a paltry salary left at the end of every month.

Her employer pays temporary staff double what she gets and they have none of her responsibilities. Rachel, Enfield

■ Further to Labour’s claim that the Conservatives are willing to sell off the NHS to Donald Trump as part of a trade deal (Metro, Thu). They have consistently sold off crucial parts to private companies that provide services to our NHS.

If the Conservatives win this election, they will continue to do so.Soon the NHS will be wholly owned by the private sector, which puts profit first.

This would place millions of people in the UK into debt and poverty. If people doubt this, just look at how much a private hip operation costs. Brian McClintock, Wiltshire

■ Can someone remind me which party sold off hospitals to then have to rent back (under the disastrous PFI deal) and introduced competitive bidding to the NHS? I think it may have been around the same time as they introduced university tuition fees but before revealing evidence of weapons of mass destruction… Roy Russell, Leamington Spa

■ If Mr Johnson says the NHS is not on the table, why is he so confident of a US trade deal? What else that’s so great do we have to offer? Lee, Leeds

■ Mr Johnson says the NHS is not ‘on the table’ in trade negotiations with the US but what does this mean?

The US does not want to ‘buy’ the NHS but it does want to be allowed to make as much money as it can out of it by selling drugs and services to it at the highest prices.

Two troubling questions remain – who will be in the stronger negotiating position in the trade talks between the UK and the US, and does Mr Johnson’s record suggest he can be trusted? Tim, Carshalton