Sir, – The time has come to take the Friarage Hospital at Northallerton out of the clutches of the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and show the rest of the country how a community hospital can best provide the service required. This concept of a “community hospital” is what the Big Society is all about. It would be run by the senior consultants, GPs and nurses, meeting periodically with the representatives of the League of Friends and the district and county public authorities, with one finance and administration officer to ensure decisions taken are implemented.

It could be funded as at present by taxation, but assisted by the savings in the Hospital Trust no longer dealing with the Northallerton services, and by public funding. It would require a fair share of the specialist personnel so that all the usual services would be provided.

There would be no more carting of ill and frail patients up and down the road to Middlesbrough like baggage, less strain on the ambulance service, less risk to emergency cases where speed of admission to hospital is vital.

The empire building at the trusts could be minimised and more of the millions of pounds poured into the NHS by governments would be applied to front-line services.

Patients from Northallerton and the country areas would not find themselves in a strange, huge hospital, difficult to supervise, either financially or practically.

They would not be so exposed to hospital bugs such as sickness and diarrhoea, which is too prevalent in the James Cook University Hospital. They would not be divorced from the support, by distance, of family and friends, accepted as an aid of recovery.

It is unlikely that the above would be proposed by NHS officers – they are too entrenched in existing procedures. Only a public outcry, supported by the media, is likely to enforce change.

R C DALES Brompton, Northallerton