THE Press headline “Huge shake-up plans to plug £420 million NHS hole” (November 25) makes quite startling reading.

This should alert readers as to the very dangerous and damaging aspects that six years of Tory Government have done to our NHS.

I started that day listening to a debate on the same subject, with high and middle management and staff members of A&E stating that the health service covering the York area needs to reduce attendances at A&E by around 20 per cent to enable them to cut the projected £40 million overspend.

While I acknowledge that some people do attend A&E with apparently trivial symptoms, I question whether this amounts to 20 per cent.

At the same time NHS management surely should realise that being able to get an appointment to see a GP can take either many days or several weeks and therefore somebody in pain or extreme discomfort will visit their A&E department as a last resort.

Until more work is done by the Government to alleviate the lack of funding to local council social service departments, them bed blocking will continue. This is where the pressures are stretching the NHS to breaking point.

The NHS is one of the best things that Great Britain ever introduced (the jewel in the crown) and should never be allowed to ration treatment to any person who is in distress, pain or extreme discomfort and cannot get an appointment to see a GP.

Howard Perry, St James Place, Dringhouses, York