I recently had a health scare and contacted my local Weymouth NHS surgery.

As a result, my GP rang me four times in 76 hours to offer advice and check on my progress.

Furthermore, about a month ago, I had occasion to attend the Dorset County Hospital with a completely different medical problem.

There again, I received thoroughly professional help. In both instances I was treated not only efficiently and courteously but also – which was beyond the call of duty – with sympathy and kindness.

It makes me very angry, therefore, to read press reports that our NHS practitioners are increasingly facing hostility and even threats.

Of course people are frustrated because there is a limit to the help doctors can offer,especially during the pandemic.

But this does not excuse bad behaviour towards them when they are under so much pressure with limited resources.

Now the new Secretary of Health, Sajid Javid, appears to have joined in the abuse of General Practitioners though, as Martin Marshall, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, has remarked, (he) should be defending GPs from ‘malicious criticism’.

In 2015 the then Conservative Health Secretary promised 5,000 more GPs in five years; instead the number has fallen by 4.5 % to 28,096 full-time equivalent staff. And so, in order to stave off criticism, Javid and his Conservative colleagues have now decided to excuse the inadequacies of the NHS by attacking GPs.

It seems that they are to be blamed for failures in Government. It’s time we started clapping our plates together again to support the NHS from the policies of these people.

ALAN CHEDZOY

Weymouth