The Spectator’s letters page is hazardous

Question time

Sir: Your leading article ‘Sense prevails’ (13 April) is a valuable précis of the Cass Review into NHS gender treatment. However, it also raises several questions. How are the actions of these individuals, groups and organisations different from those of others who have been found to have acted unprofessionally, causing harm to patients who were entitled to place trust for their health in them? Where was the ethical and executive management oversight within the NHS? What other unproven ‘treatments’ are being carried out under the ever-growing demands for more money to be allocated to the NHS? Finally, what sanctions are to be meted out – or will we be fobbed off with the perpetrators’ handbook: ‘Lessons have been learned’?

David Blackwell

Chesterfield

Shrinks rapped

Sir: In your leading article last week, you rightly note that ‘medical professionals should have been alerted’ to what was going on at the Tavistock Clinic. Quite so. The Royal College of Psychiatrists surely has a governance role here. Its silence has been deafening.

Noel Scott, retired consultant psychiatrist

Belfast

The doctor will see you now

Sir: I share some of Laurie Graham’s concerns (‘Cosmetic surgery’, 13 April) about the NHS. I live in North Wales, where the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has been in and out of special measures. But my GP surgery has introduced a brilliant online triage system called ‘Klinik’, where one can type one’s requests or concerns in detail. It is so much better than Laurie Graham’s 8 a.m. ‘scrum’ or ringing a jammed switchboard. I have accessed Klinik three times in the past year and have always had a quick and appropriate response, two of which were face-to-face GP appointments within 24 hours.