'The NHS: a national treasure, but not without its flaws' - your letters, plus No vote campaigners hit the streets in a 1975 snapshot

From the NHS and work-life reflections to local infrastructure, tax fairness, and public communication - your letters this Monday.

Plus

By Tania Taylor

Published Just now

Supporting image for story: 'The NHS: a national treasure, but not without its flaws' - your letters, plus No vote campaigners hit the streets in a 1975 snapshot — PICTURE FROM THE PAST: Labour supporters campaigning for a No vote in the 1975 referendum on whether Britain should stay in the Common Market, which later became the European Union. The picture, complained with a DIY battlebus, is believed to have been taken in Shrewsbury. Britain emphatically voted to stay in.

You can enjoy other pictures from the past and more with our weekly FREE Nostalgia Newsletter - with scores of archive pictures and exclusive features on the history of Shropshire and Mid Wales - all sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up here.

Let’s be honest about the NHS

Does the NHS being a national treasure stop us and it being honest about not everything being right within it?

Yes funding is a problem, closing cottage hospitals was a mistake, governments not telling the public straight taxes must rise to fund it is a mistake, but of course funding will always be a problem.

With the number of inquiries into failings within the NHS proving it is not perfect that has to be balanced against the fact that there are 1.5 million people working within the English NHS alone, so can it ever be perfect? There are no easy answers. I suspect that the NHS only manages to carry on with a lot of goodwill.

But just a thought, when hospitals are overwhelmed we are always shown queuing ambulances, patients in corridors and staff looking at computer screens. What if half of those staff were instead looking at patients. Would that help?

Peter Steggles, Rushbury