SIR - The harrowing claims of Beryl Johnson about her care at Worcestershire Royal Hospital's Newtown road site (Aconbury Unit) didn't make for pleasant reading.

Of course, whatever the eventual outcome of her complaint, one wonders when will we wake up to reality. Despite the spin about patient choice, excellence, charters and so on, it does seem we are sleepwalking into a national health disaster like never before. The nation's largest employer and the envy of the world is now rather a sick patient. Many NHS Trusts are in dire financial straits, and even in Kidderminster, the political map was dramatically rewritten over indignation about the closure of accident and emergency services at the local hospital.

Cash flows into the veins of the NHS like never before but much is wasted in bureaucracy. The prognosis is predictably bleak as the reliance on private finance initiatives have secured financial pressures for years to come. In dentistry we are having to poach practitioners from Poland and Hungary. In mental health there are considerable problems, because of massive under-funding of care in the community. Meanwhile, the nation lives in fear of MRSA, and we are all horrified about people waiting all day or even dying in corridors on trolleys while at the same time, pen pushing chief executives enjoy huge salaries.

ANDREW BROWN,

Worcester.