Open letter to Nick Relph, chief executive Hounslow Primary Care Trust

YOU WILL know that I first wrote to you about the Stroke Association's Lost without Words campaign on June 26 this year.

This attempted to bring the plight of those who had been robbed of the power of speech by a stroke to the attention of healthcare professionals.

Having received no reply, I sent an email reminder on July 18.

When this produced no effect, I wrote again on July 31.

By then I had received two replies from my MP and one from a junior health minister but Hounslow PCT appeared to be lost for words on the subject.

There followed further email exchanges on August 8 to help you find a letter that you had lost after you told my MP you were replying to it. I am still awaiting any reply.

Strokes are the second biggest cause of premature death and the largest cause of disability in our country. The London Strategic Health Authority is currently in the middle of a major exercise to improve the state of stroke care in our city (we have nearly twice as many deaths caused by strokes as France and are near the bottom of the world league).

This is not a trivial matter. Prof Darzi and the London Health Authority are taking it very seriously as are both our main hospitals.

I must admit I am lost for words faced with the rudeness and callous indifference Hounslow PCT has shown in handling my letter.

Reluctantly, the only course now open to me is to inform the public, and the London Health Authority, that Hounslow PCT seems to regard the thousands of people disabled by or prematurely robbed of life by strokes as not even worth the trouble of answering a letter.

JOHN C MURPHY Camrose Avenue, Feltham.