Sir - “The NHS is safe in our hands”. Do you remember that rather empty promise at the last election? Well I didn’t believe it then and I certainly don’t believe it now especially as a national newspaper recently revealed that 71 members of the Coalition government (64 Tory and 7 Lib Dems.) had links to to the private health sector, either through donations, directorships or as shareholders. An absolute disgrace.

To prove the emptiness of Cameron’s promise, one of the first things they did when they got into government was to introduce the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, at a cost of £3 billion to the taxpayer, the main purpose of which was to privatise the NHS. Remember no one ever voted for this.

Add to this the fact that the Tories have refused to rule out the NHS in the Transatlantic Trade Agreement, which will as consequence open up the health service to private American companies.

Then to add insult to injury the government refused to allow health workers the recommended 1% pay increase. Now they are even planning to to cut unsocial hours pay for nurses. All this looks like a means of reducing the pay for employees ready for when the private companies take over the NHS.

The ongoing difficulties in the NHS may well suit the Tories, even if it is of their own making, because they can argue that it is not working. But the NHS is the most cost effective health service in the world. So how will private companies make a profit on this basis? The recent closure of the privately run Hinchingbrooke hospital highlights this question. Well if the Tories get in again you can bet your life they will take up their old idea of private health insurance, as in the American system. So what of those who will not be able to afford it? Well we “plebs” or “dog-ends”, as they seem to call us, can just go and die.

Andrew Dyke

Bishampton, Nr. Pershore