Our failing healthcare system needs compassion not criticism

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

We need to have an honest discussion in society about how to learn lessons without resorting to a blame culture (PA)

In discussing the death of his son, Mr Caseby makes a poignant point. The failings in mental healthcare in the UK are multifaceted. Whereas it is easy to blame poor private provision, the picture is much more complex and there are questions to be answered about why the NHS outsources sometimes its most complex clientele to the private sector. Anyone following the story will also know that the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator, has not always covered itself in glory.

Our system does not work as well as it should. We need to have an honest discussion in society about how to learn lessons without resorting to a blame culture. For as long as I have been a doctor we have been discussing how important this is but never seem to have gotten to this point. Blame drives litigation and burnout rather than healing and reform. The toll this has taken on the workforce is palpable. Our patients, professionals and services are collectively traumatised. Some well-applied intelligent kindness would go a long way to promoting recovery.

Dr Musa Sami Nottingham

Winter is coming for Lord Frost

Reading through John Rentoul's splendid article inspired me to summarise the reality re Lord Frost. Former whisky salesman and ex-unelected bureaucrat, who railed against unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, aspires to return to commoner roots and lead the unravelling Conservative Party in opposition next year. What could possibly go wrong?

Robert Boston Kent

Time to pull the plug on water bandits

Will Gore states that he “goes all in to save water” – as we all should. However, I believe that we are not being helped by the water companies who seem to increase their dividends and trouser far too much of our money while neglecting their real function – supplying drinkable water and taking away our wastewater by not dumping it “neat” into our ecosystem.

No wonder we’re in trouble: there hasn’t been a new reservoir built in Britain since the 1960s, bottled water companies take increasingly more water out of the ground year after year, and there are more leaks than ever from Victorian pipes.

For more than 30 years companies have run our water infrastructure but done nothing about the future needs of Britain. Until now when people have complained so vehemently that the water companies have made a half-hearted attempt at quelling the unrest of their customers. Not from a sense of duty and obligation but to save their bonuses and dividends.

I noted that the CEO of Thames Water has resigned due to the parlous state of their finances instead of staying on to sort out the problem. Wonder if she had any severance pay? From what I’ve discovered over the past few years, the water industry is awash with H2O bandits intent on lining their pockets with cash rather than working on behalf of the people they serve. They couldn’t run a bath let alone a company.

Keith Poole Basingstoke