THE latest Patients Charter and your booklet available on request at our local NHS district hospital was printed in November 1996.

Ringing NHS information on a free phone service, I asked if a more up-to-date edition was available. A copy dated March 1999 was sent and arrived 48 hours later. But the information in both is exactly the same - word for word.

Here are a few quotes:

Hospital services, Page 9: "Reduced waiting times - most patients go into hospital quickly, after a consultant has decided that treatment is needed. Nearly half of NHS patients who have to wait are admitted within five weeks. The Government is determined to maintain this excellent performance."

"In 1992, nearly 2,000 patients were waiting more than 18 months for hip and cataract operations. Such long waits for these operations are now a thing of the past."

"When you go to an outpatients clinic you can expect to be given a specific appointment time and be seen within 30 minutes of that time. In outpatients, more than eight out of 10 patients are now seen within 30 minutes of their appointment times."

Throughout this 28-page booklet, the operative words, repeated again and again, are "you have the right," and "you can expect."

It is a sad and shameful betrayal to the people of this country, once renowned and envied by less happy lands, that we should suffer and endure humiliation. The lives, the private lives, are more important than insincere public speeches.

ERIC BATES, Marsden Road, Burnley.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.