NO ONE can put a price on good health, or on treating the sick; nor should they. So it was good to see (The Press, October 22) that the £18 million debt of the local primary care trust has been written off.

This was money spent on treating the illnesses of people who needed their treatment. With government-imposed finite NHS resources, there is one aspect that worries me. In our part of the country, do we really need three tiers of administration, with all their attendant costs and paper shuffling?

NHS Yorkshire and Humber, NHS Yorkshire and York, and the primary care trust are all consuming funds that should be better spent at the sharp end. Nurses before pen-pushers must be the maxim.

Geoff Robb, Hunters Close, Dunnington.