Readers' Voices Your opinions and feedback on the magazine and hsj.co.uk

As a GP with a special interest in diabetes and who is studying for an MSc in the disease, I read your article "Eat all that and you'll be sick" with interest.

It is clear from discussions at the Labour Party conference that ministers are not willing to commit in any meaningful way to accountability to patients and the public. They feel that patient and public involvement will result in a postcode lottery followed by assassination by the press.

The Healthcare Commission report into emergency care raised serious concerns about communication between providers in the new emergency care landscape. Much of this could be mitigated by better access to the NHS care records service.

The Healthcare Commission's review of emergency and urgent care rightly recognises significant improvements in access and response times, including for ambulances.

Thank you Julia Tabreham for putting a spotlight on "carers behind bars" - prison inmates giving routine care to others who are elderly, vulnerable or ill.

As primary care trust chief executives in the Core Cities group - England's eight largest cities outside London - we would like to reply to your article on resource allocation.

I do wish health service managers would fight back with some hard facts and comparisons about the value of their contributions.

Your coverage misrepresented the Department of Health's failure regime policy. The figure of 2.1 per cent does not take account of the swift action that would result from the new performance regime or Monitor's compliance framework. Effective recovery action will mean the regime for unsustainable providers will be triggered only rarely.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley's recent statement on public health has set out the Conservatives' stall in this area. He has weighed in to criticise parameters such as deprivation indicators. He is no doubt correct to say older people make more calls on the health service but neglects to mention that poorer and older people are likely to have the greater need for healthcare.