SIR - The importance of making sure our NHS is adequately funded, providing up-to-date treatments and keeping it a public, free at the point of need service for all, was amply illustrated by a story that appeared in the press last week.

This also shows that the NHS should be a key General Election issue.

It appears that thousands of well-off parents in London and the South- east of England have been paying privately to have their children vaccinated against meningitis B while children in poorer regions remain unprotected as negotiations to provide it free on the NHS stalled, until Jeremy Hunt finally announced the vaccine will be given free to all children on the NHS.

Meningitis B can kill young children or leave them facing limb amputations, and it has a more damaging impact in socially deprived areas.

Christopher Head, chief executive of the Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF), said that talks between the Government and the manufacturers were going at a “snail’s pace” in this year’s meningitis season and consequently “children were dying every week”.

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose