SIR – With the recent figures showing waiting times in the A&E departments of hospitals getting too long, why aren’t other figures also shown.
Instead of blaming the Government or the hospital staff and administration, why not print other statistics which will show the real culprit.
Who is the real culprit? The British public.
Two million admissions to A&E per year are directly attributed to alcohol. Around 20 per cent of visits are for people needing basic first aid only, because their local surgery is shut or they haven’t a sticking plaster in the house.
If people drank in a responsible manner and learned basic first aid, the A&E admissions could be cut by around 50 per cent and waiting times to zero.
Please don’t blame the overworked hospital staff. The problem is the stupidity and lack of consideration of a growing section of our population who use our hospitals for the wrong reason, or to patch them up after sustaining avoidable injuries.
Keith Rayner, Laburnum Drive, Baildon
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