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Mr. Carlisle
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will instruct letter writers in his Department that their letters should be clearly and simply expressed, in the spirit of "Plain Words" by Sir Ernest Gowers, and that technical, medical and nursing terms should be used to clarify the meaning of a sentence, and not to make it harder to understand.
Mr. Moyle
The staff are encouraged to keep letters as short, friendly and simple as possible and training courses are available for staff on drafting and style. However, for the sake of accuracy, it is sometimes necessary to use terms which, although they may not be readily intelligible to the layman, have a precise meaning which would not be conveyed by a more everyday phrase.