THE letter from John Walsh, Chairman of Swindon & District Community Health Council (Letters November 14) made interesting and revealing reading, particularly with regard to the CHC's conclusions following the monitoring of the use made of two private hospitals by PMH.

Its first conclusion was: Public/private initiatives should be reserved for demonstrably exceptional case of need eg unreasonably long waiting lists.'

It would seem that after some 50 years of NHS experience, the CHC feels that waiting for treatment is entirely acceptable except in exceptional cases.

In 40 years in medical practice, I cannot recall meeting with any disease process that was improved by waiting for treatment.

Waiting means that at the very least the patient will need to tolerate their disease process longer than necessary, and this assumes that the correct diagnosis has been made at the outset.

The fact is that most illnesses requiring hospital admission get worse with the passage of time.

In some instances delay may make the difference between complete recovery and residual disability, while in others delay may mean the difference between life and death.

Ideally all illness should be treated as soon as it is diagnosed.

By and large that is what happens in France and Germany, and probably elsewhere in Continental Europe as well.

It is for this reason that their results from cancer treatment are significantly better than those in the United Kingdom.

It certainly will not happen overnight, but our aim should be that all illness should be treated with minimal delay hours or perhaps days, not weeks and months.

It will take many years to rebuild our hospital stock and to train sufficient nurses and doctors, both for primary and secondary care, but I suggest that our goal is quite clear: Delay in investigation, diagnosis and treatment is unacceptable.

The CHC might care to reconsider its conclusions.

Dr C O LISTER

Whitworth Road

Swindon