CAN I add my support to the point made by Greg Stone (March 19). What the NHS needs is not cash inducements to doctors to stay in service, as they are already well motivated by their sense of vocation, but less bureaucracy giving them more time to spend face-to-face with their patients.

I have just had my second outpatient appointment in a week cancelled due to, in the words of York Health Trust's chief executive, the unavailability of doctors. One of these appointments, relating to persistent chest pains, was made last year! What is needed is a clean-out of those executives and bureaucrats, and a redirection of our money to the areas that it was taken from us for, namely clinicians at the work-face.

Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen, because the very managers who hold the power to do it would have to put themselves out of work, and they are not going to do that, are they?

John Simpson,

Geldof Road,

York.

Updated: 10:33 Monday, March 26, 2001