THE chasm between political rhetoric and the real state of the NHS is now so wide it is difficult to believe anything any politician says on the subject.

We now learn York patients might have the “choice” of being shipped out of the area to cheaper parts of the country to receive healthcare (“Ill patients may be moved out of York”, The Press, April 24).

As politicians clamber aboard the anti-establishment bandwagon, maybe it is time to be honest with ourselves about the future of healthcare provision in this country.

You cannot get more “establishment” than the NHS, which, like any huge organisation that has been around for ages, thinks it is immortal and is run to serve a wide range of vested interests (of which the needs of patients are but one).

David Farnsworth, Haxby, York