The elderly should quiver with fear at the impending destruction Jeremy Hunt is going to inflict on social care

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Jeremy Hunt has added the responsibility of social care to his Health Department job (Reuters)

It says a good deal about the decision-making, firm control and lack of insight that May has allowed Hunt to remain “in charge” of the NHS and has even expanded his remit to social care. He has NO qualifications to justify the former and even less credibility to justify the latter. I cannot remember a more mistrusted, reviled and incompetent individual since I started my RMN training in 1971.

Well done, Prime Minister, done your credibility no end of good. Not.

The elderly and their relatives in the UK should quiver with fear at the impending destruction.

T Maunder
Kirkstall

Hunt wants to make a name for himself

There is very little I can add to comments on reports of Jeremy Hunt’s refusal to move from his post of Health Secretary, save only to say that it seems that he might want to go down in history as the man who presided over the privatisation of the NHS.

Mark Morsman
London, SE13

What a reckless reshuffle

Not impressed with Theresa May’s shuffling dexterity. The jokers and knaves remain in situ!

Owen Leeds
Preston

The concerns that Theresa May has with her ministers refusing to reshuffle seats seems a bit like switching deckchairs on the Titanic – a sinking feeling.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia

Some advice for David Gauke

The announcement of David Gauke as the new Justice Secretary means that since the Conservative Party regained power in 2010 there have been six different secretaries of state for justice in under eight years. Such a rapid turnover indicates crisis management and a general lack of direction at the heart of government.

With only just a cursory glance at the record of the previous justice secretaries, one cannot help but notice a profound sense of failure with regards to prison policy. Since May 2015 Michael Gove, Liz Truss and David Lidington have all come and gone, with very little positive to show. An abandoned Prison and Courts Bill and a new commitment to allow a small number of prisoners on licence (about 100 people) to vote just about sums up their collective contribution.

Chris Grayling, Justice Secretary from September 2012 to May 2015, undoubtedly made things worse with his tougher stance, seeing prison budgets slashed, reductions in legal aid and a more punitively orientated incentives and earned privileges scheme.

Since May 2010 more than 1,800 people have died in prisons in England and Wales, 580 of which were self-inflicted deaths. There are record numbers of incidents of self-harm, high levels of prisoners as feeling unsafe, appalling physical conditions and increasing levels of prisoner disturbances – the National Tactical Response Group (NTRG) was deployed on 580 occasions in the last year.

If David Gauke is to take some inspiration from his recent predecessors he should look to Ken Clarke, Justice Secretary from May 2010 to September 2012. Clarke acknowledged that prisons were largely ineffective and that it was “virtually impossible” to rehabilitate prisoners through short-term sentences. He was “astonished” at the record number of people serving times in jails in England and Wales and called for the diversion of people with mental health and substance use problems from prison. If he is to do any better than his immediate predecessors, David Gauke must grasp the nettle and seriously explore policy options that can radically reduce the prison population.

Dr David Scott
Ramsbottom

Families must have a great role in caring for the elderly

In response to the comments of Patrick Cleary and Nicki Bartlett may I say they both use the same rationalisations that the majority use to assist them to abdicate their responsibilities. I have more practical experience of caring than either of them.

My family moved house, when my two sons were in their teens, to accommodate an elderly aunt of mine who had become incapable of being discharged from hospital. She lived with us for two years before her death. Later my mother moved in as she became more incapable until her death. We are at present caring for my 91-year-old mother-in-law who still lives on her own.

Professionally I worked for the NHS as a community nurse visiting and caring for elderly patients for 20 years. I was often appalled at the lack of interest from relatives who never visited until the will was being read and were often difficult to involve in caring. Many just wanted to ship off their problem into residential care and grumble about having to pay.

Most elderly people look forward to contact from their family and will rationalise their disappointment when this doesn’t happen. They’re too busy, they have their own lives to live without bothering with me, are words I often used to hear.

Many people in other societies feel it is a privilege, not an imposition to include their parents in the family.

It should be a joint care package with care services assisting the family not the other way round.

Michael Pate
Preston

There’s no smoke without fire

My first thoughts on reading the news that white smoke has been seen coming from the top of Trump Tower was “has he been made Pope now”?

Alastair Duncan
Winchester