MANY will have been taken by the conflict between your front page story on the Taxi firm which will not provide a service over Christmas on account of the risk of violent injury and the page six message from Somerset PCT, not to use Taunton A & E or the out of hours GP service for other than medical emergencies.

I was struck by the advice from Dr Yoxall as to who on Earth the old, disabled, infirm or just living alone could turn to for treatment?

Take a fall and a badly sprained ankle. An emergency ambulance will be refused by the 999 operator; neither A & E nor GP regard it as worthy of their attention; NHS Direct can provide only theoretical advice; and there are no taxis to take you at your £50 cost to a duty pharmacist for contraceptive tablets!

It seems the only option of an increasing sector of the population is to pay half a weeks pension for a trip to a remote shop to be bandaged semi-professionally and sold a patent potion, which may or may not help. From the NHS we get the message:- "Shut up until we get round to you after our holidays!"

Some very young and inexperienced MPs think that extending GP surgery hours will alleviate this problem. What Rot! This is just to play into this governments scheme to eliminate Family GP Practices in favour of American style commercial agency Doctors serving Medical Supermarkets in urban locations. My experience of these commercial medical firms has been solely of poorly qualified (hence cheaper) doctors, trying to undermine diagnoses of their better qualified NHS opposites, purely on cost grounds.

M.J. BENNING Langford Budville, Wellington