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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday October 14 2001 04.14 BST
They came by email, fax and post; angry, sad and delighted. We have been overwhelmed by the volume and passion of readers' responses to our comment on the National Health Service. Last week I detailed how, since I became The Observer 's health editor, I had lost my faith in the NHS, arguing that we need to find new ways to deliver health care - using insurance and fees, and giving patients choice of doctors and hospitals. These are systems we know work well and fairly in other European countries. Writing such heresy in a liberal newspaper, I was braced for a barrage of hostility - and certainly it came: from patients, doctors, and health care analysts. But the criticism was overwhelmed by messages of support - particularly from those who work within the system. Hundreds of doctors, nurses and managers wrote in, saying how they too had lost their belief in the NHS, and reluctantly reached the conclusion that it could never deliver the modern health care that British people deserve. While the NHS still has many defenders, it is also depressingly clear it has lost the support of many whose job it is to make it work. We are publishing a small selection of these letters.
