Too many people tinkering with services

Sir, – We are fast becoming a nation of interferers – and often with disastrous consequences.

Our once proud and much lauded education system was copied by many.

Yet now it has been beset upon by the so-called Curriculum for Excellence which has wrought confusion upon both teachers and pupils.

There seem to be ever changing modes and directions all leading downwards to a fall in literacy and numeracy.

Meanwhile, our police force is now centrally organised , apparently in the interest of social and financial efficiency.

But it has an IT system seemingly not fit for purpose.

At the same time the service is now facing an enormous monetary black hole, with public confidence also at a low ebb.

Then we turn to our once vaunted National Health Service.

Once upon a time the NHS was run wholly satisfactorily by a Matron-inspired regime with both State Registered Nurse (SRN) and State Enrolled Nurse (SEN) levels of nurses.

This has been replaced by a top heavy and highly bureaucratic system, more concerned with number crunching than delivery, and the SEN rank, very much the backbone of hospitals, eliminated.

The tinkerers are at play everywhere.

There is an old adage that “a camel is a horse designed by a committee”.

That being so we have a surfeit of camels abounding us – and continuing to multiply at a cost.

David L Thomson. 24 Laurence Park, Kinglassie.

The NHS has become “top heavy”, according to this correspondent.