SIR - W E Oates (T&A, May 8) suggests NHS Trusts should be abolished and the money given to hospitals. It is in fact the trusts that run the hospitals.
However, there are parts of the NHS that should be abolished - the parts that do not treat patients.
The NHS Information Authority - a recently created and expensive body set up for the purpose of passing statistics around from one bit of the NHS to another - has been dismantled and split into Connecting for Health and the Health and Social Care Information Centre', which seems to do much the same thing as the Information Authority, but with a new (and no doubt costly) logo.
Strategic Health Authorities treat not a single patient but are nonetheless large institutions with a tremendous workforce of administrators.
When I sought assurances these would be abolished, the Secretary of State declined to respond, but Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley confirmed a Conservative government would scrap them and give the money directly to hospital trusts.
As to the trusts, we need to let managers get on with their job. They are often just as committed to healthcare as the clinical professionals, but receive none of the thanks.
Coun Matt Palmer (Con, Wharfedale), Peel Place, Burley-in-Wharfedale
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