The Health Secretary should stop complaining and start fixing the NHS

Telegraph

10-02-2025

SIR – Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has again attacked the NHS, this time regarding the number of foreign doctors that it employs (
Since taking office, he has repeatedly complained about aspects of the NHS. I will only be interested in his views, however, when he not only proposes solutions, but also explains fully how they are to be achieved. He continues to act as if he is in opposition, raising concerns without offering substantive policy changes.
Jeremy Bateman
Winslow, Buckinghamshire
SIR – The overreliance of the NHS on foreign medical graduates is a scandal that has been unfolding for decades (
The solution to this problem, which will take several years to achieve, is to increase the number of training places in British medical schools substantially, while simultaneously improving the working conditions of NHS doctors, so that fewer choose to emigrate or take early retirement.
Dr Tim Cantor
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
SIR – I disagree with J Meirion Thomas's opinion on the quality of the International Medical Graduates (IMG) Plab 2 tests conducted by the General Medical Council (
Many will gain postgraduate qualifications and additional degrees, in open competition with UK-trained graduates. During the course of their postgraduate clinical training, their original medical school training will become progressively less relevant.
The GMC conducts significantly more Plab assessments compared with medical schools because it has a large pool of examiners. They are specifically trained for Plab 2 assessment and undergo yearly appraisal for that role. I have met many such examiners who hold senior positions in clinical practice, including a health trust medical director, and who also have experience in examining for medical school finals, college exams and deanery roles.
However, it is incumbent on trainers to continue to support their trainees' learning needs, regardless of their original medical school qualification, to develop their full potential.
A da Silva FRCS
Wrexham, Denbighshire
Cost of carbon capture
SIR – It is with a mixture of terror and despair that I read of Ed Miliband's plan to pass on costs of carbon capture to consumers, possibly amounting to £800 per year (
From where does this Government think that people like me – on fixed incomes – are going to find any more money?
My limited income, which some years ago was generous enough for me to have a reasonably comfortable retirement, is being eroded in so many different directions that I no longer have that security. Higher taxation, rising costs, loss of heating allowance – the list goes on.
Susan Walters
Frampton Cotterell, Gloucestershire
SIR – Ed Miliband's plan for carbon capture, the reverse of fracking, part of his reckless pursuit of clean power by 2030, is doomed to end in failure on both cost and environmental grounds.
Fracking is at least a wealth creator. Carbon capture at £22 billion is an absurdly expensive vanity project, with little prospect of delivering a return on investment.
John Naylor
East Preston, West Sussex
SIR – Ed Miliband is going to spend £22 billion on carbon capture. Perhaps this will, as promised, remove 8.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, equivalent to taking four million cars off the road (
Road traffic and associated pollution must surely be decreasing, just as Mr Miliband wants, owing to split tyres and broken suspensions – with car owners continuing to pay large sums in road tax.
Malcolm Dickins
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Royal Navy dress
SIR – You report (
I am very pleased to see that there are so many people from different ethnic groups serving in the Royal Navy, and I do not understand why Rear Admiral Philip Mathias is so concerned about a more inclusive dress code.
We are talking about wearing a sari to a formal dinner, not in combat situations. If Scottish officers can wear kilts, there is no justification for not allowing a kurta or sari to be worn.
Having said this, during a recent visit to a colonial-era club in Bengaluru, India, our Kent-born son-in-law was refused entry to the bar as he was dressed in Indian attire. How the tables have turned over the years.
Rama Murthy
Congleton, Cheshire
Chatterley in Paris
SIR – I left school at the age of 16 and was sent to Paris to live with a family who spoke no English. After two days, I went to a bookshop in the Champs-Élysées and bought a copy of the forbidden Lady Chatterley's Lover (
A foreign phone call was so rare in those days that my mother assumed I must have had an accident or was dead. She was so relieved to hear I was alive and well that she simply asked whether the book was in French, and on being told it was, said, 'Well, that's a good way to learn the language', and put the phone down.
Madame was not happy.
Lamorna Good
Aldeburgh, Suffolk
Triggered by drama
SIR – You report (
I have no sympathy at all for university students who claim to be offended or upset by the subject matter of their course, requiring warnings on texts so that their feelings aren't hurt. If they were not aware of the scope and likely content of the subject, and where it might lead, they should not be studying it at that academic level in the first place.
In every generation, there are people who consider that the attitudes, words and actions of their ancestors are unacceptable, and should not be written about or studied. Are these people aware that those same ancestors would have been disgusted by the attitudes of our present day?
The corollary to this, which we must not forget, is that our descendants will find just as much to be horrified by when they study our times.
Attitudes on all matters, but particularly those relating to religion, identity and sex, are constantly changing, and what is acceptable, or even normal, to one generation would have been anathema to their great-grandparents, and will be again to their great-grandchildren.
Dr Stephen Custance-Baker
Cheddon Fitzpaine, Taunton
Musicians at Molineux
SIR – I have a season ticket at Molineux, Wolverhampton Wanderers' football ground, near where Robert Plant sits (
I once took my daughter, and said: 'That man is one of the most famous rock stars in the world.' She would not believe me because he was completely ignored.
My late grandfather sat near Edward Elgar at Molineux. It must be something in the crowd's singing that attracts these musicians.
Jonathan Yardley
Wolverhampton
Stout shortage
SIR – The current shortage of Guinness (
My grandmother had a bottle of Whitbread's nearly every day, and lived to a ripe age of 90.
Harvey Vivian
Malvern, Worcestershire
A foolproof method for perfect boiled eggs
SIR – My husband cannot cook anything other than a beautifully boiled egg (
His method is simple. Place the egg in cold water; bring to the boil for two-and-three-quarter minutes; immediately remove the egg from the water and place under a cold running tap for a few seconds.
Success every time – firm white, runny yolk. Why complicate life?
Patricia Bruzon
Corsham, Wiltshire
SIR – The 30-minute process for boiling an egg using two hot saucepans is an example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Most people use supermarket eggs (how fresh is fresh?) and keep them in the fridge. Even Delia Smith's venerated method of boiling an egg in today's kitchens means cracks, clouds and disaster.
My trusty method is to take the egg from the fridge; put it into a saucepan of cold water on a high heat; leave it for exactly 11 minutes; take it out, and allow to quickly dry while being lifted on a spoon into an egg cup.
Brendan Hudson
Carshalton, Surrey
SIR – My late husband, though he couldn't have been called a good cook, did know how to achieve the perfect boiled egg, using the following method.
Place the egg into a pan of cold water; bring to the boil and cook for about two minutes; lift out the egg with a spoon and check to see how long the water on the shell takes to evaporate; if this begins instantly, then it indicates that the egg is hot through to the middle and thus cooked; however, if the evaporation is slower, replace the egg in the boiling water for a further 30 seconds or so.
Ninety-nine out of 100 eggs have been exactly right, but bear in mind that fresher eggs (just a day or two old) will take marginally longer.
Bryony Hill
Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex
Evidence of Russia's depleted military strength
SIR – Richard Kemp discusses Russia's shortage of armoured vehicles (
If Russia is reduced to using Ladas as assault vehicles, then it truly must have taken a hammering since those days, when it had a huge arsenal.
Gp Capt D R E Evans (retd)
Cardiff
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