NHS has lost way

How can senior NHS managers be allowed, or justify, a 20 per cent hike in salary (your report, 18 January) when not so long ago the carefully conceived Agenda for Change programme forced upon the workforce meant drastic salary cuts for those who did not directly manage others or were not GPs?

By The Newsroom

Published 19th Jan 2010, 20:16 BST

Updated 19th Jan 2010, 20:19 BST

I left the NHS because of the A4C process and the subsequent salary cut I was expected to take. It was simply financially beneficial for me to be outside in the private sector.

Having been on the inside for many years, though, I know just how much time, money and effort are wasted through poor management and the lack of skilled "non-clinical" personnel, who are subjugated by so-called health professionals.

Do you really think a nurse or GP should be dictating what happens with IT strategy? Sorry, but the sacred cow that is the NHS lost its way many years ago and needs to be slaughtered. We simply cannot afford this waste of public money to support what is in many cases a deluded service stuffed with overpaid and overfed NHS executives and GPs.

T BELL

Marchmont Road

Edinburgh