Theresa May's NHS funding increase sounds good but won't actually make much difference in practice

The long overdue increase in NHS funding is welcome news, a desperately cynical move though it is. The demoralised and fragmented service is failing the generations of people who depend upon it and have revered it during the past 70 years.

The “it’s not just about money” argument that has been trotted out over the years to avoid the issue is in fact correct, but it is partly about money. The NHS operates effectively only as a whole system, and it is no longer a whole system.

Profitable low (financial) risk specialities have been hived off to the private sector fragmenting and disrupting healthcare, which more often than not requires an integrated and coordinated approach. So, very welcome that it is, it will be of little benefit if increased funding is hived off to swell the coffers of private health companies leaving a service that remains underfunded and disjointed

Chris Brace
York

It is profoundly positive that the NHS is now on the government’s agenda. However, I do not think that this government will be able to tackle the myriad challenges facing the NHS. Great expectations, as Charles Dickens put it, can be both problematic and unrealistic.

First, the government is perceived by huge swathes of the population as lacking empathy and a coherent plan to communicate with people. Second, Theresa May has helped to prop up the mental health crisis, darken the mood state of the nation, widen the chasm of income inequality and outright poverty between people, and drag entire families into the morass of debt, exhaustion, homelessness and breakdown through the government’s drastic austerity measures in vital public services.

One can only hope May et al will come down from their ivory towers and see the social and economic mess they have created in reality.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2

Brexit negotiators should be involved in parliament

I just watched Theresa May argue that negotiators cannot report to parliament during Brexit negotiations. Lessons from history would tell her that the lack of involvement by elected representatives can end badly.

This is what happened during the negotiations for Britain to leave Ireland: the Irish negotiators were prevented from consulting with the provisional Irish government on the terms of British withdrawal, and this lead directly to the Irish civil war, a divided Ireland, 30 years of the Troubles and the current question of a hard border.

Beware the law of unforeseen consequences. Those who don’t study history are condemned to repeat it.

John Simpson
Ross on Wye

How can anyone still vote for the Tories?

When asking whether Theresa May is cowardly or horrible, James Moore has missed one of the reasons we can be assured she is horrible. Before the last election she said, “Personally I have always been in favour of fox hunting”, a declaration that had a significant negative impact on her chances of success. She has no excuse for this obnoxious opinion because the internet is now awash with filmed evidence of the disgusting cruelty involved in the (illegal) practice of fox hunting, so she knows what she is supporting.

Her fellow dinosaur, Christopher Chope (no “Sir” from me) compounded his destruction of the “upskirting” legislation on Friday by promptly also destroying the chances of another private member’s bill to give greater legal protection from attack to police dogs and horses.

Can anyone please give me a cogent and non-obnoxious reason why anyone votes for this ghastly crew? Especially anyone who claims to be an animal lover?

Penny Little
Oxfordshire

How to end moped crime

Regarding the upsurge of moped attacks, could an emergency order banning pillion passengers be applied?

I appreciate it could cause some inconvenience, but the police could move instantly to “disarm” potential attackers before the events described. If the riders attempted to escape, they could be charged as attempted robbers.

William Park
Lytham St Annes

We need to reframe the narrative around rectal examinations

Your article “Less than a third of men can spot signs of most common cancer, poll shows” suggests that rectal examination is “uncomfortable” – not true. Having had numerous rectal examinations myself, I can confidently declare that the procedure is not even vaguely uncomfortable.

Perhaps The Independent could lead the charge towards changing the narrative around medical examination.

There is a damaging morbid delicacy about physical examination generally and genital, rectal and breast examination in particular. The lives of patients and doctors would be so much easier if such examinations were viewed in their correct perspective as banal, mundane and sexless interactions, devoid of even the slightest taint of embarrassment. Correctly performed and in the absence of pathology, none should cause pain. The sensations may be outside the envelope of previous experience and the circumstances maybe likewise but none should fear examination at all.

Women’s reluctance to attend smear tests, with all the potentially disastrous consequences, seems to be another particularly damaging consequence of the prevailing perpetuated falsehoods.

Man or woman, you’ve got what you’ve got and there are no secrets or surprises or mysteries. An outbreak of sanguine equanimity and good sense is overdue. It’s time to be grownups and put behind us negative sentiments and baseless fears.

Perpetuating false narratives is a bad idea and particularly egregious is the use of the nauseatingly maudlin circumlocution – “intimate examination”. Having examined thousands of men and women over the decades of a medical career, I can report with confidence that I have never done any “intimate” thing with any patient at any time.

Steve Ford
Haydon Bridge