In response to your editorial (Risk registers: Managing the unthinkable, 14 March), I recall that when I was a non-executive director of a NHS primary care trust we were advised that the trust's strategic risk register had to be considered by the board at regular intervals to ensure that the trust was addressing remedies for these. Such board meetings were always held in public, so the register was publicly available. I doubt that the situation is any different now.
Why should MPs, who are framing new legislation that clearly will lead to significant risks for the NHS, as well as for all users of the NHS (us as patients), be denied access to the government's own risk register about its proposed NHS reforms? If the risks are clearly stated, our lawmakers can satisfy themselves that it will be both feasible and practical to put appropriate measures in place, once the legislation initiates the risks. Nothing could be worse, or more stupid, than finding out about the risks after the event and then discovering that it's not feasible to mitigate effectively against them.
Peter Hartley
Former non-executive director, Mid-Sussex Primary Care Trust (since disbanded)
