I would like to respond to two comments made by Mr Royston Smith (Daily Echo, April 16) ’Plea to halt ‘irreversible sale’ of NHS’.

“TTIP will not affect how public services are paid for.” (My emphasis.) Royston Smith is correct.

Tax payers will continue to pay for the NHS but private firms will be running it, fragmenting the service, cherrypicking the easiest and most profitable of its parts and passing the profits to their shareholders, as is now happening.

‘If I thought the TTIP would put our NHS in private hands I would vote against it”.

Again, correct. It is not TTIP that will put the NHS into private hands. The present Coalition Government is doing that right now. TTIP will ensure that this privatisation is irreversible.

During a three-week period the People’s NHS and Southampton Keep Our NHS Public spoke with over 800 householders in Sholing and Thornhill who were concerned enough about these issues to want an ‘NHS: Not for Sale’ sign on their property. In Southampton we value our NHS, and we won’t let it be quietly sold off.

GINNY LEVETT, Southampton.