Record straight on QMW merger

Your report on the Queen Mary and Westfield College Bill (THES, July 7) contains two mistakes. First, this is not a Private Member's Bill: it is a Private Bill which is something completely different. The Bill is promoted by the three merging colleges.

Second, you say that the Bill provides for the merger of St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, Queen Mary and Westfield College and the Royal London Hospital. There is no merger with the Royal London Hospital. The hospital is, together with St Bartholomew's Hospital and the London Chest Hospital, part of the Royal Hospitals NHS Trust, which is a quite separate legal entity and forms no part of the proposed merger, although these are the teaching hospitals with which we shall be most closely associated in every possible way.

The third party to the merger is, of course, the London Hospital Medical College.

GRAHAM ZELLICK Queen Mary and Westfield College University of London