Healthy utopia?

John Birkett (Letters, 24 June) suggests that the NHS has much more illness to deal with than it did in 1948. Did we not have mental health issues then? Were people not smoking, drinking and taking drugs?

By The Newsroom

Published 25th Jun 2010, 20:04 BST

Updated 25th Jun 2010, 20:14 BST

Were there no abortions or STDs? It sounds quite a utopia; I wonder why they needed an NHS.

In reality, the resources and staffing available has increased dramatically since then. Unfortunately, it appears that the experiences of patients has not improved at such a pace.

JAMES MacDONALD

Crow Road

Glasgow

NHS