Stephen Dorrell and the Royal Free Hospital

• I WONDER if Stephen Dorrell’s Omnes Healthcare group will somehow, knowingly or unknowingly, help to continue privatisation of the NHS by stealth, (Revealed: Former health secretary’s company scoops deal to treat NHS backlog patients, November 25).

In the US if you are poor, lower middle-class, or a freelance independent, God forbid you ever need major medical care.

In the UK the private firms have, say, seven-year contracts which makes them have to account to no one except their own profit.

In the US suing such a firm for negligence is far easier than in the UK. So often these private companies here have a ball.

I am saddened that the Conservative party will not put adequate funding into the NHS. After all there will be future pandemics.

Could NHS medical support for any future pandemic be ring-fenced and have its own separate finance and even facilities?

Brexit doesn’t help the staffing, of course, but billions pour into a useless, not needed, destructive High Speed 2 train, costing oodles more than similar infrastructure projects around the world. It makes one gasp.

Personally when I have been ushered to a private clinic the results were not satisfactory.

And this autumn I waited months for a bone-density scan appointment, and finally it was in a private clinic, miles away. That, with a hip needing surgery, was impossible for me to get to.

I told that to my GP who then referred me to the Royal Free Hospital, where I have had my previous Dexa scans. By the way this appointment was made quickly and slotted in for less than two weeks’ time.

PRIMAVERA BOMAN, NW1