We congratulate the leading cancer specialists in voicing their complaints on the need for weekly waiting-time treatment targets (Targets on waiting times are harming patients, August 16). They smack of "ticking the box", are time-consuming and, on a weekly basis, irrelevant.

The points raised of auditing medical outcomes of patient treatments are far more important. We would agree with Dr Fitzsimons that targets for patient response, patient survival rate and the quality of life during treatment are more relevant.

The strides that have been made in cancer care are admirable and we can appreciate how important time becomes, but in our view it is wasted in irrelevant number crunching to allow politicians to prove how much they care for cancer patients. This view applies to politicians of all parties. For years we have pleaded to have the NHS taken out of party politics where it is used as a political football in order to gain cheap political points.
Margaret Hinds, Chair, Health Service Forum SE, Glasgow.

19 August 2008