HELEN McArdle’s thoughtful report (“Are GPs facing their biggest shake-up in NHS history?”, The Herald, March 12) does not condemn the proposal to incorporate GPs into the NHS as salaried employees but does register some reservations. However, there seems to me to be a fundamental conflict within these proposals. GPs who are employed by the NHS owe certain duties to the NHS as their employer while also owing to their patients the professional duties of the medical vocation. I am concerned that there may be potential conflict between these respective areas of duty.

My own view is probably coloured by a particular experience of many years ago as a solicitor. I was consulted by the parents of an 18-year-old son who had suffered from severe mental and physical impairment since birth and who resided in a hospital facility along with a number of children with similar conditions. These children tended also to have reduced immunity and consequent increased susceptibility to infection. They were in receipt of ongoing medical care and supervision as patients of the NHS. I was consulted by the parents because they, along with other parents, were alarmed by a proposal to remove the children from the hospital facility into a community facility.

The doctor in charge of the hospital facility was unwilling to discharge the children from medical care and that doctor was replaced by a doctor from a different area who had no previous experience of treating the children in question but was nevertheless able to discharge them from medical care, enabling them to be moved into the community facility. My involvement in the matter ended not many months later when my clients’ child succumbed to illness and passed away, as did at least some of the other children.

I was not able or qualified to form any views as to cause of death or culpability, personal or institutional, but I was able to observe a clear conflict between the approach of the doctor who had been responsible for the ongoing care of the children and that of the doctor brought in at a time when the NHS was implementing a national policy to transfer care from the NHS to the community.

That conflict seems likely to prejudice the interests of individual patients, particularly those of vulnerable individuals.

The prospect of taking on the NHS coupled with the pointlessness of a struggle which could not possibly recover their loss seemed to dissuade my clients from taking the matter further. I shall be interested to hear whether GPs themselves or their professional bodies have any similar reservations about these proposals.

Michael Sheridan, by Strachur, Argyll.

STOP THE MOVE TO SOLAR FARMS

IN these uncertain days the UK must become self-sufficient in food production, since it imports 48 per cent of the food consumed. Ukraine exports 25 million tonnes of wheat every year, some to Britain, but this year's crop will never be planted. Why are the UK and Scottish governments allowing good agricultural land to be "rewilded" or turned into solar farms?

Rewilding and solar farms will not feed the nation. The UK and Scottish governments must decree that local authorities refuse planning permission for solar farms and revoke any permission already given. We are now on a war footing, so farmland is vital for food production.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

WIND CLAIMS HAVE A BASIC FLAW

EVERY wind installation planning application includes a claim relating to the number of homes it could supply with electricity. Totting up all these claimed numbers suggests that all homes in the country and more should already be supplied by wind-generated electricity. This is not happening.

The national grid is still being supported by large quantities of electricity generated by nuclear and fossil fuel generators – at more than 55% of demand as I write, with wind at 17%. Could it be the basic flaw, namely: one wind turbine and no wind equals zero electricity and 10,000 wind turbines and no wind also equals virtually zero electricity? The assertion by the wind industry that the wind always blows somewhere is obviously misleading.

Perhaps a better name for renewables would be unreliables.

GM Lindsay, Kinross.

* I READ David Bol's article on the pleas made by the GMB to the Scottish Government that small nuclear reactors (SNRs), presently being punted by Rolls-Royce and a host of Tory spokespeople, should be welcomed in Scotland, despite being against Scottish Government policy ("Union: Opposition to nuclear power is costing jobs in Scotland", The Herald, March 12).

Shouldn't the article be better labelled as an advert for Rolls-Royce? Are other SNRs available?

Allan McDougall, Neilston.

PUT LITTER ONUS ON THE PUBLIC

I READ with interest the letter from Rod Hunter (March 14) regarding the rubbish and litter everywhere in Glasgow, which he says is the fault of the SNP spending our hard-earned cash to fund a second independence referendum. I beg to differ: the First Minister has not gone round the streets of Glasgow strewing litter about. It is the inhabitants of Glasgow who have been dropping rubbish everywhere they went.

When are people going to start taking responsibility for their own garbage? Nobody nowadays wants to take responsibility for their own actions. Those who make the city filthy should be shamed for throwing the wrappings of their takeaway meals on the ground, throwing down their cigarette butts, spitting their chewing gum on to the pavements. And they should be obliged to pick it up.

Why should council tax payers have to fork out to have rubbish removed? Why can’t people do what I was taught to do, and put my litter in a bin? Too much trouble?

Margaret Forbes, Kilmacolm.

LEFT FEAT

WE were reminded in your Remember when... feature ("Harry McShane headed a hunger march in 1933", The Herald, March 15) of the life and activities of Harry McShane. In his time he was one of an exceptional group of left-wing activists. Think,for example, of Willie Gallacher, John Maclean, David Kirkwood, James Maxton, Manny Shinwell and John Wheatley. One wonders what they would make of the political situation in Britain today and those providing political leadership .

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.