IN response to A Edwards’ letter I would remind him/her that on July 21 2009, the then Health Secretary Andy Burnham instigated an inquiry into care provided by the Mid Staffs Foundation Trust. The results were published on February 24, 2010.

The inquiry that A Edwards refers to lost some of its allure to the extreme right when he disclosed that present Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ‘seems unwilling to introduce some of his more far-reaching proposals’ proposals that were backed by Labour and the Royal College of Surgeons.

A Edwards then uses the inquiry of Prof Sir Bruce Keogh saying; ‘Mortality rates since 2005 under Labour suggested thousands more people may have died than would have normally been expected’.ÿ This statement ignores Keogh’s own assertion that; ‘It is important to understand that mortality in all NHS hospitals has been falling over the past decade: overall mortality has fallen by about 30 per cent’.

Keogh apologised to Andy Burnham for the ConDems deliberate misinterpretation and was reported to be ‘furious that his findings had been used to blame Labour for the unnecessary deaths of 13,000 patients, a figure he did not recognise’.ÿ Also Professor Sir Mike Rawlins, president of the Royal Society of Medicine dismisses the figures as ‘complete distortion of the statistics.’ Keogh added; ‘Not my calculations, not my views. Don’t believe everything you read, particularly in some newspapers.’ÿ A Edwards then states ‘nothing had been done for years under Blair and Brown’ÿhowever Keogh stressed ‘that problems in the NHS were the fault of decades of underinvestment, not the actions of one political party or group of ministers.’ On the ConDems claim that NHS spending has increased during their tenure, Andrew Dilnot CBE of the UK Statistics Authority says ‘we would conclude that expenditure on the NHS in real terms was lower in 2011 – 12 than it was in 2009 – 10.’ That is why we now have so many hospitals in serious financial trouble.

Finally can I assure A Edwards that I do not need to be reminded of the failures of ‘True Blue’ New Labour, rather they need reminding that the NHS is not a political football; nor a cash cow on a gravy train for Tory supporters.

GRAHAM BRINKSMAN Fearnhead