The NHS needs to cut back on managers

SIR – The Government has come up with yet another crackpot scheme to change the health service (“NHS staff will get leadership training from military bosses”, report, November 28).

When will politicians begin to listen to people who actually work on the front line of the NHS? There are too many managers and not enough clinicians. This has been the case for decades, exacerbated by the introduction of general management, along with continuous “restructuring” and “transformation” programmes.

My only hope with this latest idea is that it will lead to the removal of senior managerial posts. After all, this is what has happened in the Armed Forces in recent years. Clive Rostill

Sutton Coldfield

SIR – What the NHS desperately needs is freedom from interference by politicians, whose career progression depends on demonstrating that they are agents of change – irrespective of whether those changes do good or harm. Gareth Williams

Emeritus Professor of Medicine University of Bristol