AS a guest in the UK I am astonished at the public tolerance of the damage done to your health service, which for nearly 70 years has been an exemplar for much of the world.

We read that a £6m review was asked to identify any three out of ten children’s heart treatment clinics which could be made redundant. Surely the English NHS should be investing in all ten to achieve “excellence” status?

The areas served by Leeds, Leicester, Bristol or Southampton must equally deserve these facilities, so I find it surprising that taxpayers from north and south allow themselves to be pitted against each other in some haphazard lottery, where the winners will be the ones with the glossiest brochures.

Russia might have invented that crazy roulette of self-destruction, but English health chiefs seem just as enthusiastic, and that really is sad.

V J KALADINDI, Southampton.