SIR – While police and bureaucrats jockey for positions on Bradford Health Board, it is notable that the elephant in the room was the patients.

Why is there no patients’ representation on the Board? We are, after all, the users of the service, and we ought to have a say.

Of course, patient power was removed when Tony Blair (pictured) abolished Community Health Councils, replacing them with the powerless and spineless PALS service.

Many of the problems of the NHS can be traced to the dissolution of CHCs, and Ed Miliband would be well-advised to include re-establishment in his 2015 election agenda.

I would go further. Why not set up a whole range of similar bodies, to deal with energy, transport, etc? They could hold all service providers to account, as CHCs did before they were abolished.

Karl Dallas, Church Green, Bradford