The Reader: Building Belmont will not solve A&E problems

I read your front-page article about A&E waiting lists [“Worst NHS waits ever for A&E patients spark row ”, November 14]: I am sure patients in south London can be reassured. After all the Tories are spending millions on a brand new hospital in Belmont. Where, I hear you say?

Never mind, it’s new and it’s a hospital with full A&E and maternity services.

But wait a minute: A&E and maternity services will be cut from two hospitals in exchange (at St Helier and Epsom). Overall, there will be cuts to services, cuts to doctors and cuts to the number of consultants. That’s OK, though, because those of your readers who rely on St George’s in Tooting will still be able to access the hospital as long as they don’t mind waiting with all those patients who previously used St Helier Hospital.

Seriously, how can the Tories claim the new Belmont hospital is an improvement to services?
James Whiting

Dear James

I wonder when you last visited St Helier Hospital? When I did, I saw how the 80-year-old building was powered by ageing steam boilers, how beds had to be moved away from leaking windows when it rained, and how patients had to be transferred between departments by ambulance when a lift broke down.

Much has been improved by a £12 million refurbishment but the hospital is not at present fit for 21st-century healthcare. Nor would it or Epsom lose the bulk of their A&E services were a new hospital to be built in Sutton (sensibly adjacent to the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research).

You raise a good wider point, though. With demand for NHS services at record levels, we need newer, better facilities. Whipps Cross hospital in Leytonstone and St Mary’s, Charing Cross and Hillingdon hospitals have also been earmarked for (modest) government funds. The arguments about “saving” St Helier must not be used to disguise the urgent need for massive healthcare investment in London.
Ross Lydall, Health Editor

According to Anthony Hilton [“Returns are the unknown quantity in online shopping ”, November 12], we return one in four of the items we buy online. That’s an eye-watering

£5 billion worth of goods this Christmas alone. And, as it often costs more to put returns up for resale than it does to just ditch them, many of these goods will end up in landfill.

So, for all the time and effort we spend sifting and sorting our daily rubbish into different coloured bins and bags to minimise the stuff that ends up in landfill, at the other end of the line mountains of brand new goods are being thrown away.

We really need to get a grip.
Kirsten de Keyser

In one of his Planet Earth series Sir David Attenborough described glaciers as “the most powerful erosive force on Earth”. Surely not?

If man-made climate change is causing glaciers to melt, shouldn’t that make humans the most powerful erosive force?

To fight the battle against climate change, shouldn’t we be doing more to reduce our reliance on cars, or at least cutting the speed we drive at, which reduces fuel use? Speed freaks should be told: “Kill your speed, not the planet.”
Allan Ramsay

Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s statements show the Tory confusion about immigration: while he plans to allow more people to come to work and live in Britain, she shows the nasty side (“Cap on migrants ditched by Tories ”, November 14).

And, while it’s interesting to see the Institute of Directors agreeing that Britain should relax immigration rules to let in more skilled workers, we also need people to do all the other jobs that our society needs. Even surgeons need someone to clear the mess after they have done their work.

The truth is we need immigrants if our country is to grow and prosper, as we are not producing enough people ourselves to do certain jobs, and our society is filling up with old people like me. For instance, how are all those promised new hospitals to be staffed? And where are the builders needed to build them?

But we need to plan and make sure the housing, schools and other needs are adequate to help any new Britons settle here. So far, the Tories have failed on all counts.
David Reed