Assisted-dying advocates are not all benevolent

sir – Allison Pearson (“A modest proposal to save our beloved NHS”, Comment, May 20) writes satirically of the financial and workload advantages of “putting to sleep” up to 5,000 patients a month. But satire has always had a prophetic role.

The late Baroness Warnock wrote some years ago that “if you’re demented you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service”, while a 2004 House of Commons report noted that “the cost-saving from a nationwide push towards living wills is likely to be enormous”.

Meanwhile, Jacques Attali, expresident of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, contributed helpfully: “As soon as he gets beyond 60 or 65 years of age, man lives beyond his capacity to produce, and he costs society a lot of money... euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies.”

As the debate on legalising assisted dying progresses, Ms Pearson perhaps inadvertently reminds us that not all its vocal advocates are motivated exclusively by feelings of benevolence. Neil Scolding

Emeritus Professor of Clinical Neurosciences

University of Bristol

sir – I find it hugely frustrating that GPS are being blamed for the issues surrounding late cancer diagnoses and overwhelmed A&E departments.

GPS see as many patients every three weeks as attend A&E in 12 months. There are many factors that determine cancer outcomes: as well as not having enough GPS, we also lack diagnostic equipment, resulting in huge waiting lists, and suffer from a chronic shortage of hospital staff.

Some patients present at A&E with the first symptoms of cancer, but others, who are already waiting for a secondary-care appointment, have to go as an emergency.

It is time the GP bashing ended and that solutions were sought, rather than this blame culture continuing. Stewart Mcmenemin

Corrigall, Orkney