Letters - December 30, 2019

Long waiting times? Fault lies with GPs
What are your views on waiting times in the NHS?What are your views on waiting times in the NHS?
What are your views on waiting times in the NHS?

Waiting times at A&E departments are a disgrace but hospitals are not to blame. GPs are the culprits.

When patients have to wait two or three weeks to be seen by a doctor, what is the alternative?

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Now the GPs are trying to do away with home visits, although I thought our practice had already done that.

Why are so many GPs part time and able to do locum work at weekends or evenings?

The 10-minute time allowed for an appointment is ridiculous.

If you have to make another appointment, that is surely adding to the appointment waiting list?

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The Government must make all GP practices have open surgeries as well as appointments instead of having to go to A&E.

It is time that GPs put patient care first, for without patients they have no job.

Terry Watson

via email

Election

Londoners and Boris Johnson

Leading businessmen are wondering why Londoners voted Labour. Simple.

Boris Johnson was mayor for eight years, so Londoners know the realities of a Johnson government.

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Johnson’s taste for media gimmicks was well known but his policies were weaker and he lacked attention to detail.

The roots of Crossrail’s overspend and late delivery began in his mayoralty with a poor project-management set-up.

The Garden Bridge was a classic waste of taxpayers’ money and he failed to get a good deal for use of the Olympic stadium in negotiations with West Ham.

Yet the so-called Borismaster bus is a good metaphor for his mayoralty.

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Though a striking design, each was grossly expensive and all too often the air conditioning didn’t work.

Hot air sums it up.

Don’t be surprised if the PM sacrifices the business interests on which this country depends in his rush to deliver Brexit. He’s already sacrificed the DUP.

Roger Backhouse

Address supplied

Politics

Liberal elite lost general election

Reasons for the election debacle, as the Red Wall was cracked open in the Northern and Midland Labour constituencies, have poured in thick and fast.

All along, the so-called Remainer liberal centric-Left elite and the hard-left Corbyn-McDonnell leadership have misunderstood the disgruntled working class or populist mass as they pejoratively term them.

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They failed to realise that most of those Labour heartland voters were moderate Eurosceptics who were resentful of our loss of sovereignty and mounting contributions to the Brussels gravy train.

It did not occur to this London-centred establishment that working class voters were actually patriotic and were proud of Britain’s history and its role in the world.

They were subjected to a blizzard of contempt after the referendum and were further humiliated when their vote was not only ignored but resisted in the Remainer campaign that imperiously defied their own working class supporters.

Not only did the liberal establishment run this campaign but immersed themselves in the politically correct and virtue signalling cult that was generally anathema to Labour supporters.

Gordon Lawrence

via email

Appeal

Thank you for all your support

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I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the three million plus players of the People’s Postcode Lottery in the UK.

Thanks to your support, People’s Postcode Lottery has been able to provide over £500 million to good causes since 2005, which is just incredible. Over £3.9 million of this we have been grateful to receive at Sightsavers.

Money raised by players has been indispensable in helping Sightsavers to fund vital, sight-saving work in some of the world’s poorest countries.

A cataract surgery can cost as little as £30 but it has a transformational effect.

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We recently worked with Gordane and Suhura, a married couple from Mozambique, who were both almost blind from cataracts. They were able to have sight-restoring surgery within a week of each other and it has turned their lives around, enabling them to return to normal day-to-day activities such as cooking, working and socialising. And perhaps most valuable of all, they were able to see each other again. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

So once again, a big thank you to all the players in the North West for your support.

To find out about some of the lives being turned around by players’ support, please head on over to www.sightsavers.org/ppl or give Sightsavers a call on 0800 089 2020.

With warmest wishes,

Dr Caroline Harper CBE

Sightsavers CEO