Letters: An insurance-based health system would give power back to patients
SIR – Interesting and encouraging though Sir Keir Starmer’s article was (“The NHS is not an out-of-bounds shrine. It needs unsentimental reform”, Comment, January 15), it misses the real reason for NHS failure.
“Free at the point of use” means that we consumers are beneficiaries of charity. We are expected to be deeply grateful for what the NHS is able, willing or prepared to provide, and not demand more. That opens the door to lack of accountability and consequent bureaucratic inefficiency.
Reforming universal health care in Britain through insurance, with the less advantaged subsidised but most of us paying our fair share, would put us in a contractual, not charitable, relationship with our health provider, and make us able to call the shots if we do not receive what we pay for.
Rev His Honour Peter Morrell
Nassington, Northamptonshire
SIR – I read with interest Allister Heath’s article (Comment, January 12) suggesting that the NHS is “dead”. That this should be possible is morally unacceptable. The health service must be saved, but needs rebuilding from its very foundations as rapidly as possible.
In post-war Britain, Aneurin Bevan introduced a radical, free-at-point-of-use NHS, based on a small, successful service in a Welsh town that had employed five doctors, with its tiny hospital funded by payments made by the local community. In nationalising Britain’s hospitals and health services, Bevan expanded this modest scheme into a nationwide one, ignoring a better system in Canada known as Swift Current Health Region Number One, which now provides the country with its state-funded health service. The system is superior as it has in-built financial deterrents against overuse.
Unfortunately, Bevan’s chief concern was political. He wished to demonstrate to the British public how the Labour Party could speedily deliver on its election promises. In so doing he introduced the seeds of the NHS’s decline by creating a grossly underfunded and under-resourced service, while at the same time making it a political football.
Having worked as a doctor in Canada and Britain, I have personal experience of both systems.
Dr Arnold Powell
London N2
SIR – I am suspicious of did-not-attend (DNA) statistics quoted by the NHS (“NHS waste is inevitable when everyone thinks it’s free”, Comment, January 14). I once cancelled an outpatient appointment in advance by telephone. The day after the appointment I received a call from an irate member of staff querying my non-attendance. I said that I had cancelled and was asked what contact number I used. When I replied that I had used the cancellation number specifically included in the confirmatory text message, I was told that I had used the wrong number.
A DNA mark remains on my medical record to this day.
Anthony Gales
Henham, Essex
Mermaids in the NHS
SIR – I’m shocked that the charity Mermaids is going to be training NHS staff at a Trust taking over care of trans children from the Tavistock clinic (report, January 14).
How can the NHS think this is acceptable? It should at least allow the Charity Commission to complete its investigation into Mermaids before letting the charity – which is at the centre of a number of safeguarding rows – anywhere near staff who would then be supporting children.
Jonathan Wheeler
Reading, Berkshire
Skilful statements
SIR – The demise of the Ucas personal statement in its current form will diminish us all (“Universities to scrap personal statements”, report, January 13). For generations of sixth-form pupils the struggle to sum themselves up and sell themselves succinctly in 47 lines has been painful but beneficial.
We know anecdotally that the impact of the personal statement is often very marginal, and sometimes non-existent, when hard decisions about offers are made, but that is not the point: coherent self-promotion, which is not arrogance, is an important life skill that all good schools should seek to develop in their pupils.
Like its predecessors, the current series of The Apprentice will doubtless conclude with the public vivisection of the hapless finalists as they seek hopelessly to defend the spurious claims that they have made in their utterly unconvincing CVs and business plans. At least some of their pain could have been averted if they had been obliged to compose a Ucas personal statement in their formative years.
Richard Russell
Headmaster, Colfe’s School
London SE12
Dog-walking licences
SIR – Since the start of the Covid lockdowns, there has been a huge rise in people offering dog-walking services in our area. I’ve often seen some individuals struggling to control large numbers of dogs – on one occasion, a child of 12 with seven dogs.
Highlighted by the tragedy in Surrey (“Dog walker killed as pets turn on her ‘in a frenzy’”, report, January 14), it is clear that licensing is well overdue. However, numerical limits – in place in some voluntary schemes – are too simplistic. A duo of Great Danes would be a challenge, whereas half-a-dozen chihuahuas would be little problem. But licensing of some kind is essential.
Dr Richard Brown RCVS
Heathfield, East Sussex
SIR – I walk my working cocker every day on Hindhead Common. I know some of the dog walkers. Most are in control, with dogs on leads, but I am always concerned that one dog might turn nasty and the others will follow. Dogs will attack in packs if one does.
It is time for proper legislation to control dog-walking.
Jack Marriott
Churt, Surrey
Smokers’ shower
SIR – I have never tried to read a book in a shower, but I can tell Jan Bardey (Letters, January 13) that in my cricket club we had two showers, one of which had a unique shower head. It had an unusual spray pattern through its functioning holes, which made it possible to finish your after-match cigarette while taking a shower.
Forty years on, I don’t expect this would be a desirable feature, but at the time it was seen as a relaxing benefit.
John Bristow
Otterbourne, Hampshire
Blinkered university
SIR – I read of the trigger warning for Petrushka at the University of Aberdeen with dismay (“Trigger alert for ‘distressing’ on-stage death... of a puppet”, report, January 13).
I recall discovering Petrushka as a child, hearing it on a Proms radio broadcast quite by chance. That inspirational experience was vital for me in developing a knowledge not only of ballet, opera, art and music, but also of world cultures. Surely educational life on any level – but especially at university – should encourage a spirit of open-minded discovery, not one of blinkered apprehension.
Jackie Marshall-Gent
Whitstable, Kent
Church and slavery
SIR – It is reported that the number of people identified as victims of modern slavery in the United Kingdom has been rising year on year, with over 12,000 people referred to the authorities in 2021. The real number of people trapped in slavery is estimated to be as high as 130,000.
I suggest that Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, spends the Church of England’s surplus £100 million on relieving the sufferings of these people rather than virtue-signalling about the past wrongs of slavery (Letters, January 14).
Neil Meaden
Salisbury, Wiltshire
Marmalade breaks
SIR – Patricia Sheldon (Letters, January 14) writes about the change in quality and appearance of Seville oranges bought in Britain.
I have just returned from Seville with a quantity of oranges plucked from the trees (with permission) in one of the city’s squares. Last week, I turned these into the most delicious marmalade ever. The oranges were not particularly gnarly-skinned but they were packed with pips and unbelievably juicy.
Might I suggest that an enterprising travel company offers city-break weekends for marmalade connoisseurs to pick their own oranges?
Helen Vasper
Liss, Hampshire
SIR – I agree that Seville oranges are less good than usual. They contain fewer pips than they used to, as do lemons. However, I have managed to make my year’s supply of marmalade (20 to 25 jars) in the past two weeks.
S C Rosebery
Croydon, Surrey
A celebration of Leeds in the heart of the city
SIR – I was interested in Rosa Silverman’s article on culture in Leeds (Features, January 7), and would add to her list the iconic mural, Cornucopia, close to the Corn Exchange in the city centre. It was painted in 1990 by the late Yorkshire artist and muralist Graeme Willson.
At the time, the Victorian Corn Exchange was being refurbished and the architects commissioned Willson to produce a piece of public art to enhance the area. The mural is a celebration of the history of this particular part of Leeds.
It features historical and modern figures, along with images of nearby architecture, such as the distinctive elliptical Corn Exchange roof.
Willson was awarded the Leeds Award for Architecture and the Environment for this artwork. Two goddesses dominate: Ceres, goddess of agriculture, and Arachne, goddess of weaving – a reference to the textile industry of Victorian Leeds.
Cornucopia is a five-minute walk from Leeds station and is like having a little piece of Florence in Leeds city centre.
Rosemary Micklethwaite
Leeds, West Yorkshire
One mother’s solution to driving test failures
SIR – I failed my driving test (Letters, January 14) a number of times in the late 1960s. My mother thought that sympathy might work. She found a nurse’s uniform, complete with frilly sleeves and cap, from the bottom of a wardrobe and, minus the cap, I set off.
I passed.
Marguerite Beard-Gould
Walmer, Kent
SIR – During my driving test as a trooper in a three-ton Bedford RL, the fearsome and charmless examiner, a staff sergeant in the Queen’s Own Hussars, admired my watch and told me to pull over going up the Snake in Catterick so that he could look at it.
On taking it, he left the cab for a couple of minutes and on returning told me to carry out a hill start. As an aside, he said he had placed my watch behind the nearside rear wheel.
I reached the top of the hill, whereupon he took the watch out of his pocket – without so much as a smile. I passed his test.
Lt Col Simon Stewart (retd)
Hexham, Northumberland
SIR – I took my test in 1963 in my father’s small truck, which had been converted to transport boars before the days of artificial insemination.
The examiner climbed into the truck and asked me to start the vehicle. This I did, at which the truck started to shake. The examiner said: “What’s that?” I replied: “There’s a pig in the back.” The examiner said: “You cannot take your test with a pig in the back!”
I called to my father, who was in the waiting room, and explained the situation. “No problem,” he said, and dropped the tailboard and drove the pig, a fully-grown boar, on to the parking area, where he kept it while I took my test. I failed.
Derek Godfrey
Holt, Norfolk
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