GIVEN the report that the NHS needs to save £20bn, top judge Ian Pearson is absolutely right to criticise the Government’s soft approach to violent criminals and dangerous drivers.

The first step to making the NHS more efficient should not be to reduce its medical staff, but to reduce the number of people needing treatment.

Any person who harms another, or indeed threatens to harm another, whether through violence or unlawful driving, should be locked up, and should be kept locked up, until such time as no person needs hospital treatment for such offences.

Too severe? Not if you look at the state of health care in a Third World country, which we will surely become if we don’t find solutions to the nation’s poor health, the rising number of disabled people, the rising number of desperate immigrants, and last, but not least, the accelerated melting of the polar ice caps which could ultimately displace 25 per cent of the human race.

Allan Ramsay Radcliffe Moor Road Radcliffe