Report to the People
14th June 2004
Anger
is Right and Justified – But Not Enough on its Own
The
perception of the Health Board’s controversial Clinical Strategy is that
it’s a done deal; that we can’t influence the debate.
This is reinforced by the fact some have already accepted defeat and are
more interested in who they can hang when the worst comes to pass.
As
someone born and bred in Greenock, I understand that reaction, but I don’t
accept it’s correct. I understand
that, in a community like ours which has had to undergo significant forced
change, we fiercely protect what we hold dear.
But I don’t accept that these plans cannot be challenged.
The
Clinical Strategy will have weaknesses which can and must be exposed. In
the coming weeks and months, we need to muster the support, knowledge and
expertise to do this.
In
terms of support, the Telegraph is to
be congratulated for articulating the strength of local feeling on the issue.
Its swift action ensures that the Health Board can be in no doubt over
the real anger we feel at these ill-conceived plans.
This is essential, but, on
its own, not enough.
We
also need to back up our passion with precision. In other words, engage the health bosses on their own terms,
challenging their arguments and the assumptions on which they rely with cold,
hard facts.
And
it is to begin framing our counterarguments that I have been speaking to
academics, to consultants and the many others who deliver our health services
locally.
Trying
to get what you could loosely term the “health establishment” – and I
don’t hesitate to include the Executive’s Health Department in this – to
recognise that the problems the NHS faces have deep, intertwined roots and
cannot be solved with a bit of pruning here and there might seem an impossible
task, not worth pursuing. (As the
low attendance at last month’s public meeting organised by the Parliament’s
Health Committee on the issue may show.)
But
I believe that, after years of making the arguments and warning what could
happen if action wasn’t taken, more people are now coming round to my way of
thinking on NHS workforce planning. Indeed,
it was a small consolation last week to see no less than the BMA and Sir John
Temple themselves finally coming out and publicly acknowledging the vital
importance of the issue. Better
late than never, I suppose.
The arguments and debate ahead of us might well be protracted and complex, but my bottom line isn’t: There shall be an Inverclyde Royal Hospital.
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