Letters: It’s time for a radical overhaul of the health service’s management class

SIR – Once again Professor Karol Sikora hits the nail squarely on the head (“The NHS cares more about PR than patients”, Comment, May 17).

Your revelations about doctors and other health professionals being punished for performing their professional duties by whistleblowing come as no surprise, but are an enormous sadness none the less.

I’ve been saying for years – if not decades – that the way to improve the NHS is to remove its layers of bureaucracy and divert the money to front-line healthcare. The only difference patients would notice would be quicker treatment. The only thing health professionals would notice would be fewer bureaucrats getting in the way.

Dr Keith Sumner
Derby

SIR – I was horrified to read the claims that NHS managers have spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on protecting their own reputations against whistleblowers (report, May 17). However, I fear that, in order to reduce the risk of this happening in future, we may see the NHS employ a whole new layer of even more highly paid managers to oversee the present ones.

John Prodger
Burgess Hill, West Sussex

SIR – An exceptionally high death rate among babies born with heart complications at Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) up to 1995 prompted a public inquiry and an overhaul of surgery across the NHS.

However, the whistleblower, anaesthetist Dr Stephen Bolsin, referred to by Dr Jenny Jessop (Letters, May 17), told me it was not just management he was up against but also the “closed ranks” attitude within the medical profession. He could not abide the hostility of colleagues and felt forced to quit, finding a senior post in Australia.

But there is a further aspect to the case. The scandal was first referred to in Private Eye but, despite the strength of the story, it was not picked up in the national press.

That changed when Dr Bolsin contacted me at The Telegraph one summer evening in 1995. He was deeply upset watching babies die when their survival chances would be vastly greater at, for example, Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The Telegraph splashed the story. But it was ignored for three days across other media until senior management at BRI, which included a highly qualified doctor, finally ceased stonewalling under a barrage of inquiries. The most likely explanation for the lengthy lag at other papers is that media lawyers are well aware of the dangers of libelling well-paid doctors and managers.

Peter Pallot
London W6

Schools under Labour

SIR – One can only imagine the quality of schooling that the broken state system will provide under Labour when up to a third of children from the independent sector have to be educated by local authorities.

The party’s act of class warfare in imposing VAT on private schools may produce £1.6 billion in revenue, but the money will not be spent on improving the state sector; it will simply be absorbed by the cost of accommodating additional pupils. Already parents are giving up on trying to provide their children with a better education (report, May 17).

John Barker
Prestbury, Cheshire

SIR – You rightly criticise Sir Keir Starmer, and the prospect of a Labour government, in your Leading Article (May 17), asking: “Would we find ourselves subject to repeated half-thought through attempts to remake the country, dropped only once their disastrous consequences had been made painfully clear?”

Yet isn’t this also what the current Government is doing in relation to taxation, immigration and net zero?

Michael Staples
Seaford, East Sussex

Selfish cyclists

SIR – I regard cyclists (Letters, May 17) as the most selfish people on the road. They have no compunction in holding up streams of traffic.

They also seem to believe that shared footpaths are entirely theirs, and frequently cycle too close to pedestrians, with no consideration for children or dogs. At the very least, the use of a bell should be a legal requirement.

Jacqueline Sudbury
Topsham, Devon

SIR – Amid all the criticism of “reckless cyclists” and the current inadequacy of the law for pursuing criminal prosecution in the event of fatalities, I am prompted to ask why such a focus is placed on what is in fact a very rare event, given that more fatalities result from trampling by cows each year.

Although any fatality is a tragedy, a brief reading of Britain’s accident statistics reveals that around 400 pedestrians lose their lives in vehicle collisions every year, and of this number around two deaths are a direct result of a collision with a cycle – in contrast with around two cyclists per week losing their lives because of accidents involving motor vehicles.

Of course, these statistics do not give an indication of guilt, and in some cases the pedestrian or cyclist may be at fault. As a regular cyclist, however, I am careful and often hyper-vigilant. We are well aware of our own vulnerability on the roads, and realise that even a low-speed collision with a pedestrian – let alone a vehicle – could cause serious injury.

Laurence Kirk
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

SIR – Rob Rawlinson (Letters, May 17) deploys the old argument: “My cycle doesn’t damage the road; therefore I shouldn’t have to pay to use the road.”

This ignores the fact that, without roads, cycling would be virtually impossible. What other sport or pastime contributes nothing towards its essential facilities?

John Graham
Kendal, Cumbria

SIR – I object strongly to the use of the phrase, “Lycra louts”, in relation to those idiot cyclists who appear to plague the streets of London.

I was a professional cyclist in the 1950s (yes, I am that old), when racing clothing was made from various forms of woollen and cotton fabrics. These, with the addition of rain and road grit, would abrade the skin to produce serious lacerations.

The advent of Lycra was very welcome. It should not be used as a term of abuse.

Scotford Lawrence
Malvern, Worcestershire

Parasites in the water

SIR – As a resident of Brixham, I alone know scores of people who have been affected by the cryptosporidium bug (“Devon water ‘contaminated by animal waste’”, report, May 17) – yet official figures suggest that relatively few people have been infected.

We are being told to contact our GP online only if the symptoms are very severe, so how is the true extent of this very unpleasant outbreak ever going to be known?

Kate Graeme-Cook
Brixham, Devon

National Trust tests

SIR – The National Trust relies on thousands of volunteers. Many are long retired and have never worked in computer-based occupations.

Currently, the Trust requires volunteers to undertake online learning in a variety of subjects, involving exams that some older volunteers struggle to complete. My wife falls into this category and expects a mass exodus from the property where she gives her time. The Trust is playing with fire and fails to understand that volunteers cannot be taken for granted.

Marcus Croome
Truro, Cornwall

Oxford’s lawns

SIR – With regard to your article (“How to get an Oxford college-perfect lawn”, telegraph.co.uk, April 25), recently we and many other gardeners from several Oxford colleges attended what was advertised as a sustainable lawn care training day, run by David Hedges-Gower, which seemed to be more of a prolonged sales pitch. To say he is teaching Oxford University gardeners “how to keep the university’s lawns in tip-top condition” is at odds with our interaction: although we cannot speak for all our colleagues, we know that many of us do not subscribe to his advice.

It may be true that there is an overuse of perennial ryegrass, but to imply that we have been “led down the garden path” is a sweeping statement. At both our colleges we use a seed mix that contains a high proportion of fescue and bent grasses in the main quads, and have done so for many years, as we know it gives us a better sward for the lawn, but it still dies off in hot dry weather.

The Oxford college garden community is a vast source of knowledge and experience, and many of us are moving to more sustainable lawn care using fewer chemicals, battery-powered machinery, reduced mowing and less water, while still producing the high-quality lawns for which we are justly renowned.

John James
Head gardener, Christ Church
Simon Bagnall
Head gardener, Worcester College
University of Oxford

A forgotten patriot

SIR – George Goschen, who was made a viscount in 1900 on his retirement after a long political career, would have been appalled that Seacox House, which he built in 1871, should have passed into the hands of the Russians, enabling them to endanger the security of his country (“Secrets of the Kent Kremlin: Putin’s English spy mansion”, report, May 9).

The great imperialist Lord Milner praised Goschen for his “unquenchable, almost boyish, patriotism”. He could not stand the thought that Ireland might be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom. He deserted Gladstone’s Liberals to fight Irish home rule. Queen Victoria would have happily made him prime minister in 1885-6 if he had been able to muster sufficient political support.

He is recalled today only as a result of Lord Randolph Churchill’s famous quip that “he forgot Goschen” when he tendered his resignation as chancellor of the Exchequer in December 1886, believing that he was irreplaceable. Goschen ought to be remembered as a tireless defender of Britain’s greatness and freedom.

Lord Lexden (Con)
London SW1

Informal acceptance

SIR – Having emigrated from Kent to New Zealand, I was delighted when, after five years, a prominent member of the Lions addressed me as “mate” (Letters, May 17). I had been accepted.

Michael J C Ellis
Whangamatā, New Zealand

How fresh is shop-bought fruit and veg?

SIR – As health-conscious eaters and lovers of fresh food, we buy lots of fruit, vegetables and salads, and we cook all our meals from scratch.

However, when we wash apples, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and the like, it is increasingly noticeable that each one is coated in a waxy substance, presumably for cosmetic reasons and as a preservative. Strawberries, meanwhile, apparently contain traces of pesticides. Is fresh food covered in chemicals all that much better than ultra-processed foods?

Rosemary Webster
Kendal, Cumbria

SIR – On Wednesday I attempted to eat a “perfectly ripe” avocado dated April 25 2024. It was still rock hard. Is this a record?

J L Wyper
London SE26

SIR – Olive oil producers warn of shortages (report, May 5). There are many olive trees in Kent producing a plentiful crop; I would gladly give the industry my two. They are covered with flowers at present and always produce fat, green fruits. We have no idea how to process them.

Jacqueline Davies
Faversham, Kent

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