How can Jeremy Hunt walk around wearing an NHS lapel with pride?

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The NHS is in a deplorable state when it comes to mental health care and provisions (Getty)

The number of people wanting to pursue nursing as a career has dropped significantly since bursaries were ended. European applications are down. Acute psychiatry beds have been cut so much that the other day it was reported that several NHS mental health trusts literally had no beds available, though this received little coverage.

It was reported yesterday that there is little monitoring of standards in psychotherapeutic services so that therapists found guilty of misconduct can just set up their practice again with no problem. Young people – whom Theresa May identified as a priority while at the same time, in the same sentence, showed she has no grasp at all what mental health actually is – are waiting months for counselling for eating disorders.

People have committed suicide over humiliating DWP “fit-to-work” assessments, yet Iain Duncan Smith and others walk the streets with impunity. Assessors have been issued with guidelines that state that mental illnesses like schizophrenia should not be regarded as “serious”. Jeremy Hunt wears an NHS badge on his lapel and sells contracts to companies criticised by the Care Quality Commission. I have never seen it so dire: where is the accountability?

T Maunder
Leeds

This is about more than chlorinated chicken, Mr Fox

Liam Fox has repeated his stance that “there are no health reasons why you couldn’t eat chicken that had been washed in chlorinated water”. Well, no, Liam Fox, there aren’t. But that is not the point, is it? The point is, why has the chicken been washed in chlorinated water in the first place?

It’s because animal welfare standards in the US are so much lower than those in the EU (a shame Fox doesn’t care so much about animal welfare as those EU guys) that they use the chlorine wash to cover up any potential lapses in their already low animal welfare standards and as a routine defence against any potential litigation for food poisoning. Do we really want to turn the clock back so far on animal welfare when we still have so much further to go?

And a word to the wise, Liam Fox: the US will not “negotiate” trade terms with you. They will lay down binding conditions that will render us no more than a colonial outpost that can be sued if we dare to object. Perhaps that is our national karma. But really, the US as a main trading partner? The very stuff of nightmares.

Beryl Wall
London W4

She who will be McVeyed

Just when we thought all political news was negative I heard about the promotion of Esther McVey to the role of Deputy Chief Whip.

I know that praise is not fashionable righ t now but McVey has ability and backbone, which is more than you can say for most of the Cabinet.

Let us hope that we see more people with talent and integrity moved up the ladder very soon.

Robert Boston
Kent

There are questions to be asked about the Balfour Declaration

Robert Fisk’s otherwise excellent article (“We must be proud of the Balfour Declaration – or we’re a bunch of extremists”) confuses existence, recognition and legality in a way that would delight Israel’s supporters who want to write the Nakba out of history.

Certainly, Israel exists and has wide de facto recognition. But “came into existence legally”? Israel’s future leaders carried out the expulsions and massacres of the Nakba during the last days of the British Mandate and declared Israel a state immediately afterwards, by then in control of far more territory than the UN committee which recommended partition had proposed, despite the UN having no more power than Balfour to take land from one people to give to another.

The newly self-declared government of Israel then awaited recognition, which it duly received. Are the means by which Israel had gained control of that land really permitted under international law? If so, any group that considers itself a candidate for statehood is entitled to take possession by force of the land and homes of any indigenous people anywhere and declare itself a state.

Keith Jacobsen
New Barnet

The Uzbek terror suspect forgot what New York stands for

Saying “Bismillah” (in the name of God) before eating pork does not make it permissible for Muslims to eat. Shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) before killing innocent people does not make it permissible either. Muslims say the beautiful phrase “Allahu Akbar” all the time. They say it during the five daily prayers and when anything good happens, along with phrases like “Alhamdulillah” (thank God) to show that they credit God with good things. That said, invoking Allah’s name during murder is despicable.

Killing innocent people you never met is pure evil. Regrettably, that is exactly what a 29-year-old Uzbek man did in New York City, leaving eight dead and a dozen injured behind. Muslims are commanded by the Qur’an to do good and avoid evil. As a Muslim, I am saddened by this act of terrorism and my heart goes to the victims and their families and loved ones. This retired veteran also salutes and stands in solidarity with the city of New York, which ranks among the list of 340 sanctuary cities in the good old USA.

Sayfull Saipov was ungrateful to the fact that America opened her arms to him and gave him safety and security. After all, the attacker also failed to recognise New York City, a city that shut down its airport in protest of the “Muslim ban”.

Mahmoud El-Yousseph, retired United States Air Force veteran
Ohio

We must put elderly care back on the agenda

Whilst politicians’ improprieties are, quite rightly, grabbing the headlines, another real political scandal at the moment is the 1.2 million older and vulnerable people in this country being left without the care they need.

Despite social care being a hot topic at the general election ever since then it has been ignored, with just a vague promise of action in the summer via a green paper and hints that the dementia tax will be introduced, despite huge unpopularity.

That 1.2 million figure is growing every day. Care homes are closing and homecare providers are handing back unviable contracts because there simply isn’t enough money in the system to keep on delivering the right level of care.

The forthcoming Budget should be used to tackle the social care crisis once and for all and if the Government doesn’t, the public should hold them to account. Stop putting it off, end the fear, anxiety and uncertainty and announce how we are to fund the huge social care deficit in the future.

Mike Padgham, chair, Independent Care Group