I WISH Nigel Boddy had done some research before writing his scaremongering letter (HAS, August 29) about the NHS.

I sit on Darlington’s Health and Partnership Scrutiny Committee. The fact is that due to an acute shortages of specialist doctors and consultants, hospitals have to specialise in areas of medical treatment where specialists can be concentrated in order to give patients first class care. It has nothing to do with funding.

That is the case the concentration of the stroke unit at the University Hospital in Durham. Stroke patients from Darlington receive excellent treatment because that is where the specialists are.

The Memorial Hospital has not been starved of funding and Mr Boddy’s is wrong about the removal of A and E.

Councillor Alan Macnab, Darlington.