Sir – For many years, volunteers in the Oxford League of Friends at the John Radcliffe Hospital have been given credit for their work. The hundred or more volunteers in the tea rooms and cafeteria of the JR and the millions of other volunteers in Britain working in hospitals, ambulance services and charity shops as well as the carers looking after family members at home, should realise that there is a downside: they are taking away jobs from the unemployed.

The benefits allowances of the unemployed are, during this time of financial crisis, a serious drain on Government finances. The private sector also is adversely affected since many established catering firms could have profitable contracts if the work of volunteers were to be outsourced by the hospital “bosses”. When many persons currently employed are losing their jobs in austerity cuts, is it too much, since we are all in it together, for volunteers also to have to give up something.

However, should they persist in volunteering, they could be required to register and to apply for a Volunteers’ Licence (at a nominal charge of, say, £100pa).

The proposed League of Friends’ rent of £25,000 will be a welcome contribution to the salaries of higher management in the NHS, where at least 1,600 CEOs receive an average pay of £158,800, rather more than the Prime Minister. The bosses responsible at the JR should not remain anonymous but be given full credit: Sir Jonathan Michael (CEO) and Mr Mark Mansfield (Director of Finance and Procurement).

Brian Wilson, Weston-on-the-Green