WHEN the NHS was set up after the Second World War it was supposed to supply free healthcare for everyone, based on need only, but since then the bureaucrats have taken over.

I believe that the NHS is the biggest employer in Europe but has been taken over by so-called civil servants who regard patients as troublesome creatures who won’t do what they are told and get in the way of their empire building. The ‘troops on the ground’ do a fine job but suffer under umpteen layers of management.

You’ll notice that they have been careful to arrange divided responsibility so the blame can always be deflected: GPs, ambulance, hospitals and home care are in their own compartments and can safely blame each other by skilled public relations teams (another wasted cost).

The council home care services are blamed for NHS hospital bed-blocking – two government departments incapable of working together. Should they be the same department?

I believe that every person who doesn’t actually see or test patients should have their job examined and be required to show that they add value to the patient.

The current mantra of closing smaller A&E departments and concentrating on superhospitals on safety grounds also has been shown to be faulty in industry. The average hospital A&E customers, forgetting those who shouldn’t be there, are urgent but not beyond the competence of the local staff so can be treated there.

The super-hospital plan means that the ambulance has to take everyone further while being tended by paramedics who, by definition, are less well equipped than even a poor A&E.

Has anyone factored in the cost of more manned ambulances being required as the average travel distance will be greater?

Would it be better for the customers to have a two-stage A&E and fix the bed-blocking by fixing the home care system?

A Foster, Peterlee

THE Sustainable Transformation Plan (STP) review team for our local NHS services says we have a problem.

If we are to maintain the current level of A&E services in the future on Teesside £281m in savings elsewhere in the NHS must be found.

How about ending all our PFI contracts renting back buildings and equipment from the private sector? How about ending the contract to rent back Bishop Auckland Hospital?

Then I bet we’d go a long way to save the £281m they say we need.

Also the STP review team say moving forward we can’t run three separate A&Es on Teesside because we can’t recruit the staff.

Isn’t that their fault?

They have raised doubts about the future of some of our services.

Who wants to work in a service when there is a question mark about the future of that service?

Nigel Boddy, Darlington