Your article (‘Locked in a death spiral’: the state of the NHS at 75, 2 July), in suggesting that the NHS was healthy under New Labour and gravely sick under the Tories today, ignores the toxic legacy of the private finance initiative (PFI), which Labour foisted on the service from 1997. PFI continues to consume vast proportions of NHS budgets – in 2019, the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that £13bn of “investment” would cost the NHS £80bn in repayments, but inflation is now sending this figure soaring. PFI delivered substandard buildings that are already crumbling. And it drove changes in terms and conditions of employment that have decimated NHS staff. If the NHS is in a death spiral, PFI is the vampire sucking it dry, and New Labour invited it into the house.
Prof Helen Colley
Manchester
• Your article refers to fears that charges for NHS care “will creep in over the next decade” (Seven in 10 people believe charges for NHS care are on the way, 3 July). In fact, Britons have paid for eye care, dentistry, prescriptions and a whole host of other treatments apparently considered peripheral for years. Isn’t it time we admitted that the NHS has not existed as intended for several decades, and if we want to bring it back then we must choose to pay sufficient levels of tax to fund it?
Purni Morell
London
• I was five when the NHS began. During my life I have had operations for breast cancer, bowel cancer, cataract, hernia and a hysterectomy and given birth to three children. All these have been treated with great skill and care by the NHS. It is entirely due to this care that I will be able to celebrate my 80th birthday in a couple of weeks. Thank you, NHS, and happy birthday.
Gill Empson
Edwinstow
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