LETTER: NHS has forgotten why it exists

Your reporter Andrew Spencer, reporting on the inquiry by Tony Greaves on the whereabouts of the Colne Health Centre £10m., gave us an insight on why the current Government is right to challenge the running of the NHS.

A spokesman for the Primary Care Trust is quoted that “The board of NHS East Lancashire recommended a course of action to be authorised by NHS Lancashire, The Cluster PCT. NHS North, The Cluster Strategic Health Authority” and we have to assume, Uncle Tom and his friends and a Minister or two!

Who are all these bodies, what do they do, and who attends their meetings? Each will have a secretarial team, a mission statement, a pot of cash, a set of dedicated, well-intentioned people who try to make sense of a system which creaks along in a Civil Service nightmare of passing the parcel.

The NHS is a wonderful idea and ought to be a wonderful institution, but like so many large organisations, it forgets why it exists - to care and look after us in a manner we want and not what may be better for those who work within it.

Brilliant facilities, latest technologies, superb consultants have their place, but not at the expense of a good local hospital where patients and relatives can easily visit and feel at home. Moving all mental health wards all over Lancashire to excellent facilities near Blackpool may be a medical good idea, but is it a family one?

DEREK MANN

Knotts Lane, Colne