I READ with interest your article 'Turn over a new leaf' in today's Evening Advertiser, and was frankly appalled by what I read.

It beggars belief that a brand new hospital has to look to the voluntary sector to provide equipment. Whilst I do not know what has been bought with all the £2 million that has been raised, you kindly provided a list of some seven areas of provision where a total of £725,664 had been spent on equipment that should be standard in any modern hospital in the UK.

When one adds to this the knowledge that some 3000 patients are currently waiting for admission to the Great Western Hospital, one must ask whether our NHS is adequately funded, which in turn begs the question as to whether the basis of that funding is correct.

Just across the Channel there will be no hospital with a waiting list of even a hundred patients, indeed they have vacant beds into which we are now sending some of our own patients, and many other European countries can tell the same story.

The reason is quite simple, all are funded on some kind of insurance-based system, so that money follows the patient and health service providers are anxious to provide a service as quickly as possible, for the patients are their customers.

Not surprisingly the results of the Continental system are significantly better than those of the NHS, for the truth is that there are virtually no medical conditions that require hospital admission that improve with waiting.

It is true that the costs are greater, for while the NHS costs about 7.5 per cent of GDP, Continental systems cost between about 10-15 per cent of GDP.

I believe that the majority of people in the UK would willingly pay a little more if they knew that a significantly better service would result. Sadly the generosity of those who have provided the GWH with some £2 million will do little to reduce the waiting list or the morbidity of waiting.

DR C O LISTER

Whitworth Road