LET’S disregard again Peter Thomson’s use of immature derogatory language in his latest letter while pointing out to him I made no mention of “lifetime” contracts, nor the nonsense of Sandhurst or other military schools he mentioned (Impossible notions about NHS training contracts should be disregarded, Dec 19).
Clearly students can opt to pay their own way and choose to work wherever they wish. We should have a scheme to prioritise funded education for an agreement to work within our NHS for an agreed period.
Perhaps Thomson’s attachment to Dartmouth reveals where he’s coming from, and his inability to think outside that restrictive box to place the needs of taxpaying patients before the interests of medics; the fundamental tenet of the NHS.
In what Thomson deems “bluster”, I haven’t downplayed accrued student debt, and if he’d paid attention I stated students should incur no education fee debt; and other professions incur higher debt like pilots – circa £100,000 for their commercial licence – which they service from excellent remuneration without whingeing like prima donnas.
Thomson has some difficulty about what the NHS and medics should deliver. He curiously believes the simple premise of free at the point of delivery, the very foundation of the NHS from its inception and which the Tories are working to end, is somehow akin to a Soviet-style system rather than the reasonable expectation of we who fund it.
Is this the jaundiced view he’s carried ever since his graduation from his “elite” Portsmouth school?
Does Thomson think it acceptable that some folks will always “fall off the end” of the service? When that can mean increased disability and even death? What intolerable standards to have.
The NHS has been eroded over many years. I’m no supporter, but Labour in office did try to mitigate it; their biggest flaw was buying infrastructure on credit through PFI (a wheeze of Unionist Gordon Brown) which rather than being exchequer-funded has saddled the service with intolerable debt, reducing contemporary service provision.
However, we’re talking medics who moonlight with the very patients they see under the NHS, refused treatment without paying additionally by private consultation.
Clearly dentists also pay lip service to NHS patients, actively promoting private practice.
My dentist has a sign advertising “limited NHS and private places” and I’ve tried to register my pensioner wife to save her having to travel for treatment to Livingston (the location where she used to work some years ago), which is causing hardship. Any system designed to force such hardship is not serving taxpaying patients – is this acceptable, Mr Thomson?
There are signs of some success. The Scottish Government is making efforts to improve the NHS service within restricted Westminster-controlled budgeting. Independence will allow a restructuring improvement through real budget priority control.
So, Mr Thomson, you continue to deride me, the messenger. Meanwhile the service will continue to get worse as long as you and your ilk insist on protecting it inside the limitation of your antiquated box.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
WHEN Scotland gains its independence will the Tory, Labour, and LibDems leave Scotland for their beloved England? Scotland will not be leaving the United Kingdom, but the Union of the Parliaments.
The King will still be the king of Scotland until the Scottish people decide otherwise.
William Purves
Galashiels
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