AS YOUR article on of June 3 states, the Southern Cross care homes for 31,000 elderly residents are in grave financial difficulties.

A USA corporation, Blackstone, bought Southern Cross and paid top executives and themselves handsomely when they sold it, shortly before Southern Cross started to fail.

I would like to point out that the above is an example of what will probably happen to our NHS, once private corporations and smaller businesses take over the more lucrative parts of the NHS from doctors, who are not trained in business administration.

The NHS is one of the greatest assets this country possesses. Unaccountable private business should not profit from, and then abandon by selling, and expecting Government and taxpayers to foot shortfalls, the assets we are most proud of – more than 60 years of health care for a whole nation, free at the point of delivery.

Janet Griffiths, St Oswald’s Road, York.