IoS letters, emails and online postings (12 July 2015)

The article “NHS should not pay for religious care, say critics” (5 July) is a rehash of a six-year-old campaign by the National Secular Society.

It ignored the opinions of medical staff who welcome the presence of NHS chaplains, of all faiths, in hospitals. Church of England chaplains are there for everyone, and provide support to patients and their families at possibly the most testing time in their lives, and are there for NHS staff, too.

The reporter overlooked new developments in healthcare chaplaincy. In March, updated NHS chaplaincy guidelines underlined the importance of pastoral, spiritual and religious care as integral aspects of NHS services, with the prospect of humanist chaplains taking their place alongside their religious co-professionals.

The Rev Dr Brendan McCarthy

Church of England national adviser on medical ethics, Church House, London SW1

It is amazing at a time when the Government is talking about billions of pounds in reduced funding for the NHS that an annual amount of £23.5m is squandered on amateur clerics. Part of the process of medical healing is aftercare, which – as everyone knows – is significantly absent in many areas and accounts for delayed discharges of patients back to their homes.

NHS funds should be used to provide proper aftercare services, designed to return people home instead of leaving them in hospital beds prone to the untender mercies of people who are insistent on promoting their particular and peculiar cultish beliefs.

John Dowdle

Watford, Hertfordshire

Emily Dugan’s article “Invisible walls stifle newest Britons” (5 July) has drawn attention to a situation of which we are acutely aware here in Boston. I do, however, regret that she did not spend more time with those in the host community, who could have contributed to a rounder picture. We need to recognise that there are many Polish people here who (like the least attractive sort of ex-pat Brits) have no interest in mixing with the resident community.

As for church life, within the Polish Mission, which supplies chaplains for the Polish community, there is a mindset that inhibits all attempts on both sides at building bridges and operates a policy of separate development.

Here at St Mary’s (in no way, as Emily suggests, a neglected church), there has been for some years a flourishing multi-ethnic community, including substantial numbers of South Indians and Filipinos. Both groups celebrate their own cultures but are equally at home sharing with everybody else. That is what we desire to achieve with the Polish (and Lithuanian) communities, but the desire for this must be present in the leadership on both sides. We are not without hope, but there is a very long way to go.

Fr Alex Adkins

Parish priest, St Mary’s, Boston, Lincolnshire

Jane Merrick is getting confused in criticising Ed Miliband for not supporting air strikes against Syria in 2013 in contrast to Labour’s support for strikes against “Islamic State” (“Harman shows how it’s done”, 5 July). It’s the one clear stance he can take credit for, it changed US policy and brought some relief through agreed destruction of chemical weapons, and lines of communication with Syria that remain. Islamic State is a very different scenario.

Michael Harley

Edinburgh

What incredible irresponsibility from Emma Townshend and Lottie Muir (“Wet and wild”, New Review 5 July). Enjoy the flora on Walthamstow Marshes, by all means, and you’re most welcome, but do not, under any circumstances, pick meadowsweet or any other flowers!

Glynne Williams

London E17

Please let Teri Pengilley know that without her compelling portrait of Roberto Saviano I wouldn’t have read James Hanning’s interesting piece on him (“Omertà does not seem to be in his vocabulary”, 5 July). Thank you.

Chris Moorhouse

Southampton, Hampshire