I have just received The Comet and read the article regarding the Lister Shuttle. I am only 23, however I can imagine that this service has become extremely important to all who use it. I find it very hard to understand how this is not classed as patient

I have just received The Comet and read the article regarding the Lister Shuttle.

I am only 23, however I can imagine that this service has become extremely important to all who use it. I find it very hard to understand how this is not classed as patient care. The people who use this service need reliable access to the hospital. I would imagine that getting the bus for most of these people is going to be out of the question so when they lose this door-to-door service it is going to cause them a lot of problems. If this service is lost then a lot of elderly/disabled people are going to be unable to get to the hospital, at least they are going to find it very hard and will probably have to rely on relatives.

I do not work for the NHS but work for a large company that is very closely connected, so I deal with patient care issues all day every day. I have come to learn from the NHS staff that I speak with that the patient (quite rightly) always come first. I feel very strongly about the NHS and the staff, I believe that all the front line (nurses, doctors, etc) staff are undervalued and extremely underpaid. This is just another way of Trust directors (the people in suits that sit at their desk all day and get paid the most) to save money. This is the way I see it... how the hell can someone be paid, in some cases, in excess of £50,000 a week to kick a football around a pitch and yet there are people that saves lives every day and only get paid a fraction of that. I never have been able to understand that and probably never will.

I believe that a local company should step forward and sponsor (just like a football team) this service. In return the company can put their logo on the car for advertisement. I will indeed be asking the company I work for to do this as I am sure it would not miss the money that it would cost and to lose this service is going to have a very high impact on the local community.

JULIANNE HARRIS, Stevenage