Experience shows that the NHS can’t be trusted to use funds efficiently

Plus: UN in Gaza; North Korea at war; lost scripts; teddy on the tracks; helping hedgehogs; and why cutting Cadets funds will backfire

SIR – Where will the “billions” to reduce waiting lists in the NHS actually be spent (“NHS will need more tax rises, signals Reeves”, report, October 29)? 
First, the administrators will hold meetings, then appoint external management consultants to decide how to use the money.
They in turn will appoint assistants, who will need assistants. At a late stage it will be discovered that a large proportion of the cash has been spent, without ever getting anywhere near a patient. 
Equally, given that the current staff and infrastructure can’t cope with demand, where will the necessary extra medical, nursing and paramedical personnel suddenly come from?
Call me an old cynic, but after nearly 40 years as a surgeon, I’ve seen it all before.
David Nunn FRCSWest Malling, Kent
SIR – I am older than the NHS, and for the past 70 years I’ve heard the same mantra from politicians of all persuasions: “The problems with the NHS can only be solved by injecting more money.”
Unfortunately, it is hardly ever suggested that, to improve its service to the public, the NHS must: cut waste, theft and fraud; crack down on over-medication and misdiagnosis; cut unnecessary bureaucracy and manage its estate, facilities and purchasing power more efficiently; encourage staff to work more intelligently; train and monitor its managers so that only those with vision, leadership qualities and effective management skills rise to the top; and treat its patients in a caring but pragmatic manner.
When are we going to get politicians who are brave enough to demand these changes?
Brian FarmerCarmarthen
SIR – According to the NHS Counter Fraud Authority, the NHS is vulnerable to £1.264 billion worth of fraud each year. 
Until fraud is seen as a major crisis within the NHS, the Government is merely filling the pockets of fraudsters when it doles out yet more taxpayer money every year. 
They must be rubbing their hands with glee today.
Trixie FosterTotnes, Devon
SIR – Last week I received a notification to check online about a forthcoming appointment. 
There were two letters waiting for me, identical except that one said my appointment was changing from December 16 to January 7, while the other said it was changing from January 7 to December 16. If the intention was to confuse me, the NHS has succeeded. 
Even as a retired GP, this has surpassed my previous experiences.
Dr Mark KaplanLondon W12
 
SIR – With North Korea entering the war in Ukraine by sending troops to assist Russia (report, October 29), the West has a decision to make. Sadly, it risks making the same mistake that caused it to lose the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the Afghan War. 
In each, led by an America with a naive and legalistic interpretation of its adversary, the West fought a proxy rather than the enemy itself. In Vietnam, the true enemy was China; in Iraq and Afghanistan it was primarily Iran.
North Korea is a wholly dependent puppet state of China. This was demonstrated when Donald Trump attempted to make peace with Kim Jong-un. All went well until the North Koreans flew to China to get the proposed thaw in relations ratified. It is inconceivable that North Korea has escalated its involvement in Ukraine without Chinese authority.
While the use of proxies on both sides continues to make it possible to pretend otherwise, it nevertheless follows that the West is now in a military conflict with China.
China, Iran and Russia are allies. Having won three significant wars against the West already, is it any wonder that they fancy their chances in a fourth?
George BathhurstWindsor, Berkshire
SIR – The news that Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has rejected Ukraine’s request to swiftly join Nato (report, October 26) was a relief. 
Nato has gone to the limit in helping Ukraine. Allowing it to join the alliance in the middle of a conflict could very easily drag the West into a full-scale war. Nato was formed to prevent such a thing happening.
John VestbirkAngmering, West Sussex
 
SIR – Our family archive holds countless letters of every handwriting style and language (Letters, October 29).
My late mother was a German refugee, and we have many items of hers, such as her dear little handwritten recipe books, which are almost unreadable. She managed to take these with her when escaping Germany with whatever she could carry in a knapsack on her back.
They are in German, of course – a language I was never taught. My childhood was so soon after the Second World War and spent in a central African colony of the British Empire, where German was all but forbidden. 
My mother wrote in the beautiful Sütterlinschrift script that today most Germans cannot read or decipher. That old handwriting style, banned by the Nazis, now needs an expert to read and translate.
Angela WaltersPrinces Risborough, Buckinghamshire
 
SIR – I was born in 1944, and my godmother made me a teddy bear (Letters, October 29). He was formed from dark brown corduroy with coat buttons for eyes. He was very ugly. I loved him and named him Big Brown.
When I was a toddler, we set off for a family train trip to London, and unfortunately I dropped Big Brown between the platform and the train. He could not be retrieved, but a very kind porter promised to rescue him once the train had left and send him to St Pancras on the next train. This he did, and we were reunited, much to everyone’s relief. 
He still sits in my bedroom.
Caroline ReavellWilden, Bedfordshire
 
SIR – The services that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) supplies in Gaza are undoubtedly vital, but they should not be provided by UNRWA, a deeply compromised organisation (“UNRWA banned from operating within Israel”, report, October 29).
Around the time the state of Israel came into being, some 750,000 non-Jews left their homes – some from fear of forthcoming conflict, some as a result of fierce exchanges. After the armistice, the UN set up UNRWA to assist them. It began work in May 1950. Seven months later the UN set up the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), excluding Palestinian refugees from its remit. Ever since, Palestinians have been treated differently by the UN – to their disadvantage. 
The 1949 UN resolution that established UNRWA said: “Constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.” In other words, the new agency’s mission was intended to be temporary, as the refugees under its wing were resettled. But resettlement never occurred. UNRWA totally ignored this key aspect of its remit. 
On the contrary, UNRWA’s policy was to perpetuate the Palestinians’ refugee status. It decided to regard as refugees all the “descendants of Palestine refugee males” in perpetuity. 
The number of Palestinians in camps registered by UNRWA as refugees has therefore ballooned from about 750,000 in 1950 to 5.9 million in 2023. Its expanding client base is, of course, used by the “temporary” UNRWA to justify its transformation into an international bureaucracy, with a staff in excess of 30,000 and an annual budget of about $1.6 billion. While UNHCR concentrates on resettling refugees so they can rebuild their lives, UNRWA has converted nearly six million people into permanent charity-dependent clients.
UNRWA should be dissolved, and its functions absorbed by UNHCR.
Neville Teller Beit Shemesh, Israel
 
SIR – My son took me for lunch at the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds, which serves “fish, chips and sips”. The sips were from glasses of Laurent-Perrier champagne (“May I suggest a sausage roll with your champers, sir?”, Features, October 22). What a treat – and in the hotel where Dickens wrote some of The Pickwick Papers.
Mary ThompsonSudbury, Suffolk
 
SIR – I read with interest Lt Col John Flexman’s concerns about the decision taken by the Department for Education to cancel its support payments to state-school Combined Cadet Forces (Letters, October 26).
He writes that these school cadet units enhance our children’s life chances by providing young people with life-changing opportunities. As a former inspector of such units and an honorary colonel of a community cadet battalion, I can vouch for this – not just from my own experiences, but because I have read the University of Northampton’s report on the social impact and return on investment that results from expenditure on the Cadet Forces.
This report makes a number of key findings, but as a care leaver myself I am struck by one in particular – namely that 97 per cent of Cadet Force adult volunteers who were teachers, social workers or members of the police believe that participation is particularly beneficial for disadvantaged youngsters. The report also adds that there are financial and non-financial benefits to UK society and the taxpayer.
In other words, the Cadet Forces deliver a positive return financially, enhance community cohesion and improve the prospects of young people, especially the disadvantaged. Any government, of whatever leaning, should be pouring money into these organisations.
Lt Col Lyndon Robinson (retd)Mursley, Buckinghamshire
 
SIR – I have recently begun supporting hedgehog rescue centres in my area of Dorset (“Hedgehog extinction fears grow as population plummets in Europe”, report, October 29). 
These are mostly in the homes of dedicated individuals. One woman I know has set aside two bedrooms and a shed for the purpose. In one week in August, she had 32 rescues, including hoglets and many injured hedgehogs. She tended to them all summer. 
If this level of need is replicated across the country, it is not surprising that their population is declining.
Rosemary J WellsChickerell, Weymouth
SIR  – Hedgehogs are delightful creatures, and are undoubtedly up against many dangers, an important one being traffic. However, another major problem is that badgers regard them as a delicacy. 
The huge increase in the badger population is the unintended consequence of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which meant that farmers and landowners were no longer allowed to manage the numbers of badgers in the countryside. 
Badgers also cause problems for ground-nesting bumblebees. 
David ReynoldsPytchley, Northamptonshire
 
We accept letters by email and post. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.  ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT   EMAIL: [email protected]   FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters @LettersDesk NEWSLETTER: sign up to receive Letters to the Editor here