Report to the People
31st October 2005
The
Right Prescription
At least in politics you
can’t complain there’s a lack of variety.
Fresh from Tuesday night’s
public meeting on redrawing the Health Board boundaries, I headed back to
Edinburgh to welcome the Shielhill Wednesday Club to Holyrood, before enjoying
the dubious honour of, wearing my Corporate Body hat, commending our riveting
report on the Non-Executive Bills Unit to MSPs.
On the face of it, you’d
think the last of these was a dull piece of housekeeping.
And you’d be right. Unfortunately,
some highly strung MSPs decided to portray it as an Executive power grab (lead
by, erm, a cross-party group of backbenchers).
Cue much wailing about the democratic right to table Bills which voters
rejected at the polls and one of these one-day wonders which causes great
excitement in the Holyrood bubble, but is irrelevant to anyone in the real
world.
The matter in hand on
Thursday, however, couldn’t be more relevant. We were debating the Executive’s response to Professor David
Kerr’s expert group report on the future shape of the NHS, which our community
played a big part in framing.
I
was pleased to welcome the Minister’s announcement that it will be a priority
to reduce health inequalities by targeting resources on communities such as ours
which have the greatest risk of ill health. The increased focus on care in local communities is also good
news.
It’s
not a panacea, but the Kerr report can help us make the NHS more responsive,
efficient and effective.
Back to Current Reports to the People
[ HOME ] [ News ] [ Report to the People ] [ Interact ] [ Links ] [ E-Mail ]
[ Copyright ] [ Directgov ] [ Scottish Parliament ]