SIR – After my personal experiences of two of the county’s hospitals, I need to express my anger somewhere.
Firstly, I was admitted to Kidderminster Hospital on July 10 to have my hernia operation. The attention and care I received at Kidderminster was excellent from the time I arrived until the time I was discharged. The entire staff at this hospital were a credit to their profession and I will be eternally grateful to them all.
Lo and behold, the Kiddy staff were then let down by their Worcestershire Royal colleagues by sheer incompetence and ineptitude. Initially my brother, who has a heart condition, received a phone call from the Royal at 11.30am stating that if he could attend a consultation at 3pm he would be promptly attended to. I personally took my brother to the hospital at 2.50pm but we did not see the consultant until 5pm. Why the superfluous phone call? Everyone I conversed with in the waiting room also expressed concern about the incompetence of the Royal.
To compound the entire episode, after taking my brother home I discovered that my daughter had been admitted to the A&E at Worcester with severe gastric pains: thankfully she was fine and diagnosed with a severe urinary infection.
Why Worcester should be ashamed of themselves is over the severe lack of communication within their staff.
I phoned on numerous occasions to check on the welfare of my daughter. Each time I was told to phone back while she was awaiting diagnosis. Finally at 7.30pm (my final call) I was told to ring back at 8.30pm as she was still to see a consultant. Lo and behold, and to my astonishment, as I put the phone down my daughter arrived at my house disorientated and a little unwell. Obviously the staff at the Royal were unaware of where she was: very strange!
The conclusion of this letter is really while Kiddy Hospital should be proud of themselves, certain staff members at the Royal should hang their heads in shame.
JON CIRIC
Worcester

We are at war and our enemy is amongst us
Sir – I think we need to understand why we, as a country need to take a long hard look at who we allow into this country and the rules we need to apply. We are in fact fighting a battle, Now; forget those images you have of men, wearing the same uniform, marching in a disciplined manor, step for step. Our current enemy does not wear a uniform, it does not bear a nations flag at the front of its column. It doesn’t have laser guided tanks or supersonic fighter aircraft.
Our enemy is probably amongst us already, you may have walked passed him or her in the superstore buying food, picking up DIY products or sitting along side you in the traffic.
They will smile at you, they’ll even pass the time of day with you.
But at a given time, on a given day, they’ll walk on to a train and explode a bomb, or they’ll walk along the high street as you shop and shoot you in cold blood. In fact, they’ll do every thing possible to kill you, They’ll turn any clapped-out van or lorry into an effective tank, they’ll hijack a plane and turn it into an effective guided missile.
Why would they target civilians? The truth is they don’t care whom they kill and that’s their secret weapon, our only defence is our police who are already stretched to their limits
So some bloke turns up at our borders with no documents, and then proclaims he’s the victim of racial, political or sexual abuse. Then before long some gooey-eyed do-gooder takes pity on him and before you know it, terrorist ‘A’ is sitting in his furnished bedsit forgotten about by the various services, planning his act of violence.
Where do I get my facts, well it’s not from some top-secret dossier I’ve just stolen but from looking at the facts around me.
IVAN CARTER
Worcester

Hounds at risk with total hunting ban
SIR – I cannot stand by and allow the ignorant anti hunting people not be challenged about their disgusting views as to how hunting foxes is conducted in the countryside,
As a child I was lucky enough for my father to take one or two foxhound puppies to walk on the farm in Worcestershire.
I loved to play with them for hours as they were such fun and so gentle and intelligent. Obviously there came the day, when they were almost grown up, that they had to go back to the kennels and I missed them so much.
These lovely animals have for centuries possessed the natural desire to chase, kill and eat foxes and other small animals.
They are not bred to do this – it is what they would do if released into the wild in order to survive.
Why is nobody making this clear?
I don’t expect town dwellers to understand this, neither do I expect them to realise that followers on horses are simply enjoying keeping up with the hounds when they chase a fox because they are doing what comes naturally.
It is extremely dangerous but very exhilarating.
Nobody, with the exception of the odd crackpot in my 70 years of hunting, loves to kill a fox, it defeats the object, ie the fun of the chase.
If these ignorant people get their wish and stop hunting altogether, they will have to witness no less than 13,000 of these lovely hounds put to death.
I say to these dreadful thoughtless people, “here is a gun, you go and shoot them!” and when each gentle hound looks at them with those innocent doleful eyes before they shoot it, I ask who is the disgusting murderer, them or me?
JACK BENNETT
Ryall

No vote easy way to change EU relationship
Sir – Although it is only a few weeks since the general election, the Scottish nationalist “tail” is already wagging the Westminster “dog”. This is a most unsatisfactory situation, considering that more UK citizens voted for UKIP than voted for the SNP.
More worrying are the reports from Europe advising that Eurocrats consider that Mr. Cameron’s EU re-negotiation criteria are much less rigorous than expected.
Changing the UK voting system may take a long time, but we can easily change our relationship with the EU by voting “NO” in the forthcoming referendum.
MARTYN WHEELER
St Peter’s, Worcester

Keep your fingers off the nuclear button
SIR – I am very worried about incompetent dunderheads like our politicians having their fingers on our nuclear buttons.
I sincerely believe the entire earth will be blown to smithereens before long.
Goodbye mankind.
GEORGE COWLEY
Worcester