The General Medical Council must be held to account over Gosport

SIR – The cover-up culture in the NHS is not the only common strand running through the recent instances of medical malpractice.

Like Dr Jane Barton, the General Medical Council must now be held to account for a long series of ill-judged decisions. Prof Gareth Williams

Berkeley, Gloucestershire

SIR – With regard to the Gosport War Memorial Hospital deaths, I am in a position to make an inspired prophecy.

1. An official inquiry will sit over a minimum of three years.

2. During that time millions of pounds will be transferred from the pockets of taxpayers into those of lawyers.

3. When a conclusion is finally arrived at, errors will be acknowledged and no one will be punished.

4. The Secretary of State will declare robustly: “Lessons have been learnt.”

Life will then continue unchanged, except for relatives of those who died. Nikolai Tolstoy

Southmoor, Berkshire

SIR – It is a national shame that the commemoration of the end of the First World War should now be tainted by revelations at Gosport War Memorial Hospital, set up in 1923 to honour the fallen and care for their descendants. Kay Gladstone

London SW6

SIR – The case of Dr Jane Barton raises the question about her being able to oversee all these poor patients apparently unsupervised.

A part-time clinical assistant post often requires no higher postgraduate qualifications. Certainly she should never have been in overall control of patient care at Gosport hospital. Dr Bryan Goodrich

Poole, Dorset

SIR – The situation that arose at Gosport is typical of what happens in nationalised industries (which the NHS is).

The interests of management (promotion, salaries etc) come first, the staff second, and the interests of customers (in the NHS, patients) a very poor third. A business operating like this would not survive very long. Geoffrey Wyartt

Newent, Gloucestershire

SIR – Sadly it is not just within the NHS that the failure of bureaucrats to respond to public complaints is apparent.

It seems that in every area of public service the word service has been forgotten.

Indeed the general public are looked upon as troublemakers if they attempt to hold public servants to account.

Honesty and integrity disappeared during the Blair era and are never likely to return. Roger Howard

Bishops Waltham, Hampshire

SIR – Can someone explain to me the difference between “cutting short” someone’s life and killing them? Ian Johnson

Cirencester, Gloucestershire