Jeremy Hunt is right that we need to stop focusing on blame when it comes to the NHS

Jeremy Hunt said yesterday that the “blame culture” in the NHS must change to avoid more scandals like those tragically exposed at Gosport War Memorial Hospital.

Of course, there must be consequences where neglect or deliberate actions have caused harm, but to shift to a “learning culture”, Hunt must incentivise accountability among staff to foster a culture of openness and honesty. Lessons are learnt only through honesty, transparency and an acceptance that accountability doesn’t necessarily lead to blame and punitive measures.

Staff are the NHS’s biggest asset and, by getting its workforce culture right, not only will Jeremy Hunt improve patient safety and prevent future scandals such as the one at Gosport Hospital, but he will also reduce the burden on staff that is making so many want to leave the profession after so many years of service.

Dennis Bacon, executive chairman, Pulse UK

If Heathrow expands, government forecasts suggest this will enable 29.1 million additional passenger movements by 2030.

Of these, it is predicted that 18.6 million will be international travellers simply changing planes, and 8 million will be UK residents going abroad for leisure – with neither category bringing obvious economic benefits to the UK.

Meanwhile, with expansion, regional airports are forecast to have fewer passengers than without it. Heathrow already subjects more than half a million people to noise annoyance, generates over 30 million car journeys a year through a busy and polluted part of London, and is the UK’s biggest point source of carbon dioxide emissions. It is hard to see how expansion is in the UK’s best interests.

Sally Cairns
Berkshire

So Emily Thornberry says that she doesn’t want to leave the European Union, represents a constituency where 75 per cent of voters wanted to remain in the European Union, and admits that the majority of her party’s membership “is likely to not want to leave the European Union”. So presumably she, and those other people, recognise that leaving the European Union will seriously damage the country.

In fact, let’s be honest, there’s a good chance that in 10 or 20 years, after the damage has been done, we’ll rejoin the European Union, with the support of most of the electorate, but on worse terms than we currently enjoy.

And yet Thornberry insists that we must leave, because she fetishises the narrow result in a badly designed and compromised referendum, two years ago.

I hope that she isn’t worried about her place in the history books, because I’m sure that they’ll have something to say about people who connive in the destruction of their country for the sake of muddled political theories.

Philip Masters
Cambridge

I see that the House of Commons has spent £2.4m gagging staff in the past five years. In this age of austerity, when the pursuit of good value for money is considered all, I wonder how much more it might have cost to have also silenced Boris Johnson.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes

Australian scientists are doing experiments on zebrafish, which have active stem cells that allow them to regrow their spine and brain. This offers great hope for people who have suffered spinal injuries.

When it comes to the human testing stage, the best trial patients would be politicians, as most seem spineless and brainless.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia

Melania Trump wears “I don’t care” jacket on plane to visit child detention centre.

You can’t fault her honesty.

Liam Power
Dundalk, Ireland