I WRITE in response to N Tate’s comments about hospital waiting times (HAS, July 11).

May I put this in context through recent personal experience. Earlier in the year I saw a cardio consultant who recommended a procedure which was booked for mid April. Obviously it was cancelled.

Three weeks ago Darlington Memorial Hospital contacted me to advise that they were now restarting normal operations and could I come in the next week.

This I did and was surprised to find a normally very busy hospital virtually empty. The ten-bed cardio ward had two other people.

Chatting with the nurses they mentioned they were frustrated at the lack of patients, who all cited Covid concerns and refused to attend.

When I left, their afternoon job was to contact people and try to persuade them to attend.

Frankly I would rather take a very low risk of contracting Covid against a high risk of possibly having a heart attack.

The Government and media have done such a good job at frightening the general public, that people are prepared to refuse to seek help, in case they contract Covid.

This may go some way to explaining why waiting lists are getting longer. So please don’t put all the blame on the NHS.

Mike Crawley, Darlington