WHETHER the NHS is being privatised depends on what you mean by privatisation.

With limited facilities in NHS hospitals, anyone needing replacement knee surgery would probably have to wait about a year from referral by their GP to the operation itself.

In York, because two private hospitals are commissioned by the NHS to augment the procedures done at York Hospital, the waiting time is about three months.

Anyone with this painful condition will tell you that saving nine months of immobility and extreme discomfort is a godsend.

If this is privatisation of the NHS, what harm is being done?

Geoff Robb, Hunters Close, Dunnington, York