Report
to the People
23rd
December 2002
Health Shake-up
As we look forward to a week of eating our own body weight in mince pies, drinking sherry by the gallon and doing nothing more energetic than playing with the kids’ toys, health improvement is probably the last thing about which you want to hear.
I would, though, be neglecting my duties if I didn’t mention the big story of last week – the news that radical, lifesaving surgery is to be performed on the NHS in Argyll and Clyde.
The shake-up comes in the wake of a damning report from a Support Team sent in to look at the workings of Argyll and Clyde by Health Minister, Malcolm Chisholm. The report, as you will doubtless have read in your Telegraph, found, amongst other things, that the region was beset by infighting.
Following the publication of the report on Monday night, I met with NHS Argyll and Clyde Chairman, John Mullin, on Tuesday. He assured me that swift and decisive action would be taken.
And he was true to his word.
A new interim management team has been installed and a single body will now take control across the whole Argyll and Clyde area. It will run services in the region until a new single-tier management structure is put in place. This interim team will also operate under a single system, replacing the old NHS board and three trusts which we’ve had up until now.
A single system will, as John Mullin says, give us one organisation, one culture and one common set of rules. It will, therefore, drastically reduce the scope for the sort of bickering, empire building and red tape which keeps new funds away from the front line and, it follows, impacts upon patient care.
Reform on this scale is undoubtedly a big task. But Argyll and Clyde is not facing it alone. When I raised this with Jack McConnell at First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, he assured me that the Executive will continue to provide support as the Board sorts these problems out.
And I have no doubt that the highly skilled and committed clinicians and ancillary staff we are lucky enough to have in Argyll and Clyde will also be ready to play their part.
If we succeed in breaking the mould in NHS Argyll and Clyde, it won’t just deliver benefits for us here in Greenock and Inverclyde. It will improve the care which every one of the 420,000 people in the Argyll and Clyde area receives.
What better Christmas present could we get than a streamlined, effective NHS, delivering the standards of care we deserve?
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