Broken NHS

SIR – My husband and I are in our 80s and have only needed the NHS (Letters, November 7) very recently.

In April my husband had a fall. We waited an hour for an ambulance. He was three days in A&E waiting for a bed, two days being assessed and six days waiting to be discharged.

Last week, I rang for a GP appointment. I am having treatment for lobular breast cancer. I could not book an appointment with any of the four female GPS any time in the future. I was asked to ring in two and a half weeks, as soon as the surgery opens, to join the lottery for an appointment.

If I’m lucky I’ll get through before all the appointments are taken. Then I will have to go through patient triage on the phone, even though I need and want a face-to-face appointment.

I despair.

Beryl Sanders

Preston, Lancashire

SIR – As a consultant surgeon in 1998, I had a waiting-list time both for surgery and outpatients of three weeks. I would suggest the following reasons for the present situation.

First, a lack of beds. Secondly, supersaturation with specialists. Thirdly, restrictive working hours (limiting operating times and shift systems, leading to lack of continuity). Fourthly, the failure of medical and nursing bodies to look at efficiency and teaching rather than asking for more money.

Before retiring in 1998, I said the NHS needed a revolution in thinking. It certainly does now.

Reg Kingston

Chorley, Lancashire