I agree with Councillor Judy Pearce's comments reported in this week's Evesham Journal that the members of the board of South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust should resign if they are not able to get the funding necessary to provide a proper local healthcare service.

Peter Luff is rightly outraged at the refusal by Tony Blair and Patricia Hewitt to even listen. However, so long as there are local people who are prepared to form a puppet board dancing to Whitehall's tunes, Patricia Hewitt and her like will have scapegoats to blame.

The arrival of David Barlow's 'commissars' (I think he means commissioners) would provide much needed clarity and transparency.

It would prevent Patricia Hewitt from blaming the local management who blame Patricia Hewitt.

It would also provide the opportunity to confirm that the problems do not stem from bad local management, but from underfunding. The commissioners would be

appointed by Patricia Hewitt and take their instructions from her. She would be directly

accountable, responsible and blameworthy for any cuts.

She would be directly to blame for any failures in the performance of the local healthcare services.

Any and all resulting unnecessary pain, suffering and even deaths would be the fault of Patricia Hewitt.

The acting chief executive has said publicly that he has no idea how to find the cuts Patricia Hewitt is demanding.

He is planning to ask her civil servants at the Strategic Health Authority for advice.

If the board and the top professional manager at the trust are in an impossible position then it is surely time for Patricia Hewitt to close her mouth and show us her management skills, which she obviously believes are superior to those of the local managers.

In the meantime, I think you should publish the names and affiliations of the members of the board of South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust who voted for the service cuts.

The people of South Worcestershire have a right to know who these people are.

Mervyn E. J. Owen, Pershore, Worcestershire.