THE problem with the NHS is in the numbers.

I have had excellent service from York Hospital in the past few years with a long standing ear problem as well as a scare with an eye bleed and prostate cancer.

However, I think it is a mistake for us to make the NHS nationally or locally a ‘no go’ area for discussion and debate.

A friend with her daughter had to endure nine hours in York A&E over the Christmas period which caused them great distress.

A&E take the brunt of patient problems as, by it’s very nature, it’s unpredictable - and isn’t helped by too many drunks who should be segregated and charged.

Are patients using A&E because of problems with GP surgeries? It’s a concern that young doctors do not aspire now to be GPs and needs addressing.

York Hospital opened in 1976 and the population of York was 160,000; it’s now estimated at 208,000.

It also serves the many villages of North Yorkshire which takes the figure up to 500,000.

Little wonder we have no spare beds.

It seems ridiculous that we are closing down all the back-up facilities for helping patients recover off hospital before they can return home.

Why haven’t we been training far more nurses (do they all really have to have degrees?), doctors and surgeons instead of shipping them in from abroad?

Whatever happened to forward planning?

Keith Massey, Bishopthorpe, York