Letters: The NHS has allowed the doctor-patient relationship to become distant
SIR – Fraser Nelson writes that “Britain is paying the deadly price for telling the public to ‘protect the NHS’” (Comment, December 15).
I have had two post-pandemic brushes with the healthcare system in England (neither involving our local hospital, which has been excellent in the past) and at no point have I been in close contact with a doctor.
As this appears to be typical across the country, I have come to the conclusion that patients are now simply viewed as a problem to be solved. This is in marked contrast with the care we received some years ago from our family doctor, who treated us as people requiring help.
Michael Turner
Winchester, Hampshire
SIR – Earlier this year I presented to my experienced GP, complaining of fatigue. After a brief examination, a total heart block was diagnosed.
Immediately our much maligned NHS swung into action. Within 36 hours I had been treated at a local hospital, transferred by ambulance to another, had a pacemaker fitted and returned home.
I wonder what would have happened if I had seen a physician associate (Letters, December 15).
Clive Miles
Radlett, Hertfordshire
SIR – I am concerned at the impression being created by the assertions from doctors and correspondents that physician associates “have no formal medical training” and are simply poor-quality, pretend doctors.
My daughter did a five-year medical degree with the usual mix of academic and practical learning, tested through academic and practical (OSCE) exams. My daughter-in-law did a three-year biomedical degree, followed by the two-year physician associate postgraduate training, which involves practical learning and rigorous academic and OSCE exams. So, not a lot of between them in terms of the slog.
Obviously the content, focus and outcomes of the qualifications are different, but it is unfair to suggest that physician associates are untrained. It is also misleading for the patient, who is left with the impression that they may be treated by an ignorant amateur masquerading as a doctor.
Physician associates are taught to be clear with patients that they are not doctors. They cannot prescribe, and everything they do – from ordering diagnostic tests to formulating a treatment plan – has to be considered and signed off by a doctor.
As in all professions, there will be good and bad ones; but please, medics, stop demotivating physician associates.
Deborah Lambert
Sowerby Bridge, East Yorkshire
SIR – I recently called my surgery. A robotic voice parroted: “Press one if you want to speak to a care navigator.”
R L Smith
Bristol
Britain’s new jets
SIR – It is good to see Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, being so bullish about the sixth-generation fighter jet programme (Commentary, December 14) but there are concerns about the project from a defence perspective.
First, how much will it finally cost and where is the money coming from?
Secondly, should the defence budget pay for technology upgrades and high-tech job creation in UK industry?
Finally, how will it affect the slow progress in equipping Britain’s two carriers with sufficient F35Bs to ensure that we have the strike capability that – despite Mr Shapps’s reference to “our mighty carriers” – we currently lack?
Admiral Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
London SW1
The danger of Trump
SIR – Con Coughlin (Comment, December 14) recommends Donald Trump as a leader of the West.
Unfortunately this would lead to the immediate abandonment of Ukraine, probably Nato as well, and possibly even end the democratic tradition of the United States. Mr Trump has no respect for that tradition.
Tim Devlin
London EC4
Assisting dying
SIR – Much is being written about assisted dying (Letters, December 14), but little about who would do the assisting.
Should the law change, there will be many in the medical profession who oppose to it. How would they be treated? Would they be pilloried like some who oppose the current abortion laws? There is a similar situation in the Anglican Church, where the bishops have decreed that gay marriage can be blessed in churches. Although this is not lawful in the Christian doctrine, priests who dissent are already being attacked for their views. Where is this all going to end?
Dr Nigel Legg
Bracon Ash, Norfolk
Airport checks
SIR – I read Isabel Oakeshott’s account of her airport experience with great interest (“I was groped by airport security, then made a villain for complaining”, Comment, December 13).
About five years ago, my wife and I were due to fly from East Midlands Airport to Corfu to join family. We had already checked in, so did not have bags with us. As we went through security, my wife set off the alarms. She explained that she had had both knees replaced and had also had open-heart surgery, so had a metal lace down her sternum.
The officer asked her to remove her shoes and scanned her feet. She was then taken behind a curtain and told to strip – bra and all. She refused. A supervisor was sent for and put a stop to the nonsense, and my wife was allowed to dress and move on.
We finally got to our flight, only to find that our bags had been taken off the aircraft, so we missed it. We were forced to rebook to fly the following day from Manchester, at a cost of £300 and the loss of two days’ holiday.
When we got back from Corfu I wrote to the East Midlands Airport manager to complain. To his credit, he viewed the CCTV of the incident, then put the security officer on other duties. She left the airport shortly after.
We had a letter of apology and an offer of an express passage through the airport next time we flew. Unfortunately, because of ill health, we have not been able to holiday abroad since, but we were pleased that we complained.
Ron Lightbown
Shardlow, Derbyshire
Cars v roads
SIR – I’ve just destroyed yet another tyre driving away from an MOT. The Government enforces MOTs to keep roads safe. But it is failing to keep cars safe from those roads.
Paul Bendit
Arlington, East Sussex
A level dance floor
SIR – Allison Pearson (Features, December 13) is right: a professional dancer like the brilliant Layton Williams should never be given a role as a contestant in Strictly. It’s unfair to all the others, and to the viewers.
In the week of the Strictly final, Gerard O’Donovan (What to watch, December 13) pointed out that Williams was also starring in the “all-singing all-dancing” Christmas special of Bad Education on BBC Three, where he “hogs the limelight”, as he has done since his first week in Strictly.
As an ardent fan of the programme (and an unsuccessful contestant in series two – my deepest sympathy to my dance partner, Anton) I wonder why the production team seems to have lost the plot this year by recruiting Williams. I suspect it’s because they now employ so many professional choreographers on their team that they’ve forgotten that this is not a dance programme but an entertainment show where the point is the journey.
Of course Annabel Croft – who, like Bobby Brazier and Ellie Leach, had never danced before – should be in the final with them. But with Williams in the mix it was inevitable from week one that he would be a finalist – so a contestant who is not a professional dancer would be denied their place, and very sadly it was Croft.
Dame Esther Rantzen
Lyndhurst, Hampshire
Cricket and the BBC
SIR – Well said, Sir Geoffrey Boycott (“BBC has been complacent over its once-iconic TMS”, Sport, December 15). His article brings back memories of the salad days of the BBC’s cricket coverage.
Indeed, so entertaining and informative were the dulcet tones of John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Henry Blofeld, Trevor Bailey, Fred Trueman and the rest of a brilliant radio team that one actually looked forward to the inevitable “rain stops play” interludes, during which they would reminisce about our national summer game.
How sad that those days have apparently gone.
John Kidd
Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia
Poulet fright
SIR – Not all French food was high-class back in the day (Letters, December 15).
In the 1970s, while waiting for a ferry in Ouistreham, I ordered poulet á lá Normande at a local restaurant. My companions wisely settled for steak frites.
They had finished eating their meal by the time mine appeared. It consisted of a chicken foot, comb, wing, spleen and liver. My attempts to chew the claw and comb were futile. I ended up very hungry while the others laughed.
Robert Hurlow
Marnhull, Dorset
Soap manufacturers should clean up their act
SIR – For hundreds of years, soap has been made up of a simple block.
Why is it that today, when everyone wants to reduce the amount of plastic being used and ingested by creatures great and small, nearly all soap is sold in plastic dispensers?
John Baker
Crayford, Kent
Advent advice
SIR – Suzanne Wynn (Letters, December 14) asks where she can buy a traditional Advent calendar.
For several years, we have bought one for our grandchildren from the Meaningful Chocolate Company. The company, which launched in 2002, uses Fairtrade chocolate, and the calendars come with a 24-page story and activity booklet that tells the Christmas tale and supports charitable causes.
Beverley Woodward
Semington, Wiltshire
SIR – I am unable to understand the bad feelings that round-robin Christmas letters create.
As I have lived in many different locations during my life, my friends are widely scattered, so it is not easy to see them regularly. Many cards give no news, so to find a letter and read about some of the fun and not-so-fun things that have happened over the year is always interesting. It also means that, when you do meet up, you have a good idea of how life is treating them.
Don’t moan about receiving round robins. If you don’t enjoy reading them and they are not from true friends, simply delete those people from your Christmas list.
Veronica Bliss
Winchester, Hampshire
SIR – Guy Kelly (Features, December 14) feels sure that saying “Happy Christmas” instead of “Merry Christmas” is an American import. Let me assure him that it is not.
No doubt there are many earlier examples, but this charming Christmas greeting appeared under Nautical Notices in the Bombay Gazette of December 1818: “Wishing you and all your brother ducks a happy Christmas.”
Of course, the greeting used to be, “Wishing you a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year”, but nowadays we are rather more realistic.
Nicholas Young
London W13
SIR– I thought we had plumbed the depths of the “verbing of nouns” when a sports commentator told us that a certain athlete would definitely “podium”. Recently, however, I heard someone on television say: “It doesn’t matter how you Christmas”.
Jane Cullinan
Padstow, Cornwall
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