Even before the £34m financial crisis in the Thames Valley strategic health authority was announced and the equivalent cutbacks revealed (Oxford Mail, September 8), it was the fifth worst investing strategic health authority in the country for mental health and learning disability services.

This is according to the Department of Health's independent audit report of 2005.

So the further cutbacks of £540,000 planned for the Oxfordshire Learning Disability Trust (OLDT) are even more alarming than it first appears.

NHS mental health and learning disability services are little more than skeleton services across the Thames Valley already and staffing levels within them are totally inadequate.

These services cannot cope with another round of draconian cutbacks.

Paul Farmer

Member of the Oxford Diocesan Health and Social Care Responsibility sub-committee

Coley Park

Reading