As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the National Health Service, Echo readers will have learned that once again the Conservative Government is engaged in undermining it.

As an example, we now learn that a number of medical procedures, which have always been offered by the NHS, are to be discontinued nationally.

These include treatment for such matters as varicose vein problems.

This is not cosmetic surgery, but a matter of real concern to many elderly people. Presumably, in the future, they will either have to go private if they can afford it, or to put up with throbbing limbs.

Added to this, we are now informed locally of the loss of hospital beds on Portland. Apart from the reduction in total Dorset bed space, this puts transport costs onto Portland people seeking to visit friends in hospital. Cuts in local bus services make the matter even worse.

I was 13 when Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health in the Labour Government, founded the NHS. It made a great difference in the lives of the working class people among whom I lived, many of whom simply could not afford to pay doctors’ fees.

These were usually five shillings which was a significant cost to families when the average wage was about £3.10s a week.

Meanwhile, Bevan endured great abuse for introducing the new service.

The Conservatives voted 21 times against it in Parliament and continue to loathe it because it goes against one of their fundamental beliefs, that people are motivated only by profit.

The Government’s procedure, consequently, is to pretend that they support the NHS, while underfunding it, and discreetly privatising it bit by bit.

I understand that there is to be a meeting on Portland with the MP for South Dorset to discuss the Portland closures. He should be asked whether or not he supports them and what, if anything, he is going to do about it. I am not optimistic about his response.

DR ALAN CHEDZOY

Spa Road, Weymouth