Overhaul the GMC

Sir: Max Pemberton’s cogent criticism of the GMC (‘Unfit for purpose’, 20 August). is one of the more nuanced and on the nose of those that I have read. A client of mine was reprimanded and subjected to a fitness-to-practise investigation after an attempted suicide following a financial crisis. The experience worsened his mental health, which then prolonged the investigation. Other clients have been forced to sell their homes or relocate.

Some initial steps I implore the GMC to take include limiting the length of investigations, improving mental health reporting, providing more support for doctors about fitness-to-practise issues, and overhauling how evidence is handled.

Deepika Raino

Director and head of healthcare regulation, Adkirk Law, Leeds

An inspiring surgeon

Sir: Reading Max Pemberton’s article concerning the GMC, I came to the last paragraphs about Omer Karim. I met him a decade ago in my role as chairman of the Thames Valley cancer patients group in a meeting with cancer surgeons. He was an inspiring figure advocating robotic surgery when the technique was in its infancy. He was greeted with scepticism by other surgeons, who seemed indifferent and even hostile to his enthusiasm. I supported his approach but as a patient I was ignored.

I am not surprised that he has crossed the GMC based upon the attitude of the other surgeons, who regarded technical innovation as a threat to their own skillset. Omer prophesied that robot-assisted surgery would be the norm within a decade. He invited me to witness a robot-assisted prostatectomy and I saw at first hand his inspiring leadership. The NHS bureaucracy has had its revenge on an innovative and pioneering surgeon.

W.R. Savage

Amersham, Bucks

Reading narrowly

Sir: Some of the younger generation seem to have a very closed mind to a variety of opinions (Letters, 20 August). One of my nephews visited us recently, and was confounded to see that I had subscriptions to The Spectator and the New Statesman, as well as Private Eye and Prospect. In his parents’ house, his sister has insisted they only take the Guardian, so I smuggle the Telegraph crosswords to her mother.

Keith Appleyard

West Wickham

Barrelling on

Sir: Owen Matthews’s otherwise excellent piece (Books, 20 August) contains one error that is important, because it is conducive to Russian paranoia. The oil-price crash of 1986 was in no way the result of ‘deliberate US government policy’. It was the result of all Opec countries, other than Saudi Arabia, refusing to cut oil production in the face of falling demand. The Saudis accordingly found themselves with sales reduced from a peak of around eight million barrels a day to fewer than three million. They warned their Opec colleagues that, unless the latter cut production, Saudi Arabia would reverse its own cuts and bring the price down – which is exactly what they did.

Peter Oppenheimer

Christ Church, Oxford

Derby day

Sir: Adjacent to the permanent Joseph Wright exhibition in Derby Museum and Gallery (‘What art will represent us?’, 20 August) is a room with oak panelling from the demolished Exeter House, where on 5 December 1745 the Jacobites made the fateful decision to retreat back to Scotland. In Derby Cathedral (where Joseph Wright lies buried), a tablet proclaims that the chaplains of the army of Prince Charles between 4 and 6 December 1745 prayed for King James, Charles Prince of Wales and Regent and Henry Duke of York. Had Bonnie Prince Charlie relied on his instincts and forged on, London could have fallen to him. James III/James VIII of Scotland would then have returned from exile. In time this half-Pole, son of Princess Clementina Sobieska, would have been proclaimed Charles III. Instead calamity at Culloden the following April awaited.

Michael Olizar

London SW15

Acronyms for all

Sir: Mary Wakefield writes that ‘since the 1980s it’s been compulsory for any form of consultancy to have their own set of acronyms’ (‘The corporatisation of kindness’, 13 August), which struck a chord. I recall seeing a cartoon in the 1990s depicting a besuited character outside a door with an opaque glass window. Etched on the window were the letters CRAP and below the cartoon, ‘It’s the committee responsible for acronym production’.

Dr Douglas Burt

Haddington, East Lothian

Technical weaknesses

Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s suggestion that you should ‘ask someone clever to reprogram your boiler to use less gas’ shows perfectly what is wrong in the UK (Any other business, 13 August). If a highly intelligent financial journalist like him doesn’t know how to adjust his gas boiler, what other glaring technical weaknesses are there in our population? The wide gap between the people in the City who control our finances and investments, and between engineers, technicians and trade service people, has been the main cause of the UK’s poor productivity over the past 50 years. If a simple thing like adjusting a boiler can save £1,000 per year, the mind boggles at the other savings this country could make.

Peter Teisen

Feckenham, Redditch

Wrap up

Sir: Following advice on boiler adjustment (Letters, 20 August), can I recommend Fair Isle or Shetland jumpers? They are amazingly warm and I expect demand will push up prices once people realise this.

Andrew Levens

Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire

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