Deborah Orr laments the loss of Play for Today (Opinion, 14 January). The effect that it had in exploring social issues is illustrated by the charity Action against Medical Accidents, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. My Play for Today, Minor Complications (which was directed by Moira Armstrong), exposed the way medical negligence was covered up in the health service. It was based on a real story of a woman fighting her own case. The response was so great my wife and I set up the charity to help people with claims: an uphill task because the opinion of medical experts was essential and (with honourable exceptions) the profession closed ranks. It is now more open and legal awareness much greater thanks to AvMA. Hospital trusts paid out just over £1bn in medical negligence claims in 2013-14, compared to £287m in 2003-4. According to AvMA’s chief executive Peter Walsh, roughly 66% of this goes to the patient in damages. The legal costs could be dramatically reduced if there were proper investigations and early settlements rather than a defend and deny culture. This is, perhaps, yet another indication of the increasing pressure the health service is under.

Peter Ransley

London

• Deborah Orr, remembering Play for Today, writes that there were no women writers. It is true there weren’t many, but I worked on a Wednesday play, Toddler On The Run, written by Sheena Mackay and directed by James Mactaggart. I also remember working on a Theatre 625 written by Julia Jones. It was called Tickle Times and was the second play of a planned trilogy. (The first play had been wiped and the only copy was an Enterprises 16mm film version. The third play never appeared.) I expect there were others.

Marcia Wheeler

London

• How could Billy Smart leave out Anne Head from his list of women Play for Today producers (Letters, 16 January)? Between 1969 and 1983, Anne produced umpteen plays for the BBC, including a four-part adaptation of Antonia White’s Frost in May” books in 1982. She knew the business well, having started as a props girl at Denham film studios just after the war. She always remembered one occasion while working on the classic A Matter of Life and Death. She spent all night wiring up individual roses to provide a romantic bower for an aerial shot only to be told as she tottered off home that the director had decided not to do the scene at all.

Dan Zerdin

London

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters