I WAS delighted to see your expanded letters page in last week’s Standard, with its three prescient letters on the NHS. 

With regard to alleged bullying, I know nothing about Romney House Surgery but I do know that right across the NHS, health staff are under unprecedented pressures due to deliberately calculated government under-funding and real or planned service cuts. 

In such a situation, it can be very difficult to avoid the noxious consequences of such workplace stress. 

The government has a solemn duty to care well-enough for those caring for others’ health and in this regard the Conservatives are abjectly failing. 

In his letter “NHS crisis left out of budget”, Lib Dem candidate Dr Brian Mathew is right to highlight Chancellor Philip Hammand’s breathtaking Pontius Pilate attitude to the NHS and social care in his recent Autumn Statement.

Until recently, the government knew it couldn’t dare to be seen to privatise our NHS because of the resulting public outcry but my fear is that in the ‘post-truth’ era of Trump, the Conservatives will be emboldened in brazenly privatising our most precious national community asset. 

Across the country, furtive local plans are being hatched under a blanket of secrecy, commonly pushing forward previous controversial closure plans under the criminally disingenuous headings of ‘centralisation’ or ‘reconfiguration’.

When challenged about these nefarious plans, a local Conservative MP replied that, “Where there is no longer a strong policy reason for continued public ownership or where there is potential for an asset to operate most sensibly and efficiently in the private sector, the government will look into the potential sale of public sector assets”. 

So the cat is leaping out of the bag, the Conservatives need to be under no misapprehension that any such moves to further privatise the people’s NHS must and will be resisted by the people by every possible means.

DR RICHARD HOUSE
Stroud