I REGULARLY read with degrees of interest various letters and articles relating to our UK Government’s austerity policies and the state of the NHS, which simply cannot manage a budget spend of £116.5bn pa (in 1948 it was £15bn).

In the face of this, why then is our government considering a spend of £55bn on HS2 (this will increase of course)?

Let me state, I am totally against the HS2 programme, as I feel there are more important priorities and the money could be far better spent elsewhere.

However, the advertised purpose of HS2 is to plan for industrial growth, plus employment and tax revenues, by enabling people and products to move throughout the UK far more quickly and efficiently.

Conversely, the primary purpose of allocating even more taxpayers’ money into the NHS is to react to accident and emergency situations, assist in ‘curing’ illness and disability, or prolong the lives of an increasingly ageing population i.e the majority of spend is one-way traffic with little or no financial return.

In other words, it weren’t for advancements in medical technology, the issue might not exist (‘three score years and 10’ etc). But, technological advancement, in whatever sphere, is an unstoppable, on-going human aspiration.

This is fine provided everyone understands that the money our government spends, wherever they spend it, is not picked off a money tree, but actually comes from tax revenues.

The NHS is not in ‘crisis’ but, like every other ‘deserving cause’ (there are nearly 200,000 registered ‘deserving cause’ UK charities), could, if they continue operating the same way, do with a major increase in budget.

Maybe, they could look at managing the budget they have a little better, perhaps we could control/charge ‘medical tourists’ a little better, perhaps we could stop paying less exorbitant hourly wages to contract medical staff, or perhaps we could stop employing so many highly paid, mega pension-earning, inefficient administrative staff.

In other words, if one continues doing the same thing, with the same ‘woe is me’ argument, then expect the same results, which in the case of our NHS is most likely a totally unacceptable, badly managed over-spend.

Ian Norton

Chandlers Way

Penarth