IF the recent revelations about the Stafford hospitals had happened during a Conservative rather than a Labour Government, there would have been all the usual screaming about Tory NHS cuts.

As I have previously suggested on the letters page, the NHS has become a sacred cow and is fast resembling the total failure of past state-controlled nationalised industries.

They all became over-managed, massive, corrupt bureaucracies, spending huge amounts of tax payers’ money and eventually providing sub-standard products and services.

I have always believed that the ability to pay should never determine the provision of healthcare, but even Nick Clegg got something right when he reportedly said that “Monopolies rarely provide the best services or products and are almost never cost effectively” – and he was talking about the NHS!

The NHS isn’t free at point of delivery, it is very expensive. Given that it now has around 1.2 million employees, costing in excess of £2bn per week, for some it seems to have changed into a career advancement administration industry rather than one in which it’s predominately excellent health care professionals can concentrate on what they do best.

Stop treating it as a political football, particularly the Labour Party, and concentrate on how best to spend vast amounts of tax payers’ money effectively.

IAN CUMMINGS, Gibson Close, Abingdon