Dear Editor

With reference to Frank Myers’s faith in the NHS ‘sustainability and development plan’ what a pity that he fails to speak out on the persistent underfunding and accelerating privatisation of our NHS. Private interests already run out-of-hours GP services and a whole tranche of other provisions. Rolling re-organisations, and the crippling effects of the Private Finance Initiative have further compounded the situation, yet a political dogma which dictates that all state assets have to be sold off is doggedly pursued by his party at any cost.

The NHS and our Local Authority schools are the last remaining assets to be plundered by business interests, often with no connection to this country, paying little or no tax here, and motivated by profit rather than altruism. Anything and everything is up for grabs, and patient wellbeing is incidental. Maybe Mr Myers is happy with this situation, I have yet to meet anyone else who is.

As with academy schools, local democratic control is minimal and management paramount and excessive. Doctors, nurses and teachers who might wish to tell the truth about what goes are gagged by self-serving superiors who will not hesitate to destroy careers rather than risk an outbreak of truth. It would seem that Burke was correct, in order for all this to happen, it will only be necessary for good men to do nothing.

Add to this the risks posed by EU exit, the government has refused to guarantee residence for 140,000 EU nationals keeping the NHS afloat; vital research across borders will be compromised, as will collaboration on many levels. The exodus has already started and the future looks grim. Rome is starting to burn, and it is high time that Mr Myers stopped fiddling and confronted the enormity of the potential crisis created in his party’s name.

Rob Lucas

Ross-on-Wye