Letter of the day: NHS now gobbles up eight times more cash than when it was launched

The NHS is inefficient, says our correspondent Picture posed by models

In fact, there is no connection at all.

Everybody up to the age of 65 and in work pays National Insurance contributions which solely go towards the State Pension and a few other benefits (hypothecation).

On the other hand, the NHS is principally funded out of general taxation, meaning everyone who pays income tax, VAT, duty and the many other taxes, is contributing to the NHS.

As for the government depriving the NHS of funds, the service is the fifth-largest employer in the world and gobbles up eight times more cash than it did when launched, allowing for changes in the value of money.

If you want to throw more money at it, it will have no problem spending it.

But in my personal experience, it will simply become a more inefficient organisation because that is what happens when efficiency is not the administration’s primary motive.

Unfortunately, these days too much has to be set aside to pay for litigious patients who do not accept that doctors are humans and can make mistakes.

Steven Schrier

West Lane, Hayling Island