By Isle of Wight Observer
Dear Editor,
On last week’s front page, you correctly reported that Island Labour raised concerns with the NHS around a year ago – just before I retired as the party’s secretary/agent – about the merger between Island and mainland trusts, and the possible loss of services to the mainland.
That concern was addressed in what seemed to be a joint approach by the IW Trust with Bob Seely MP welcoming the merger. We received no response from the trust.
Leaving aside the bad manners, it is not enough to issue a self-serving statement, even if backed by the local MP, if the NHS has taken measures to reconfigure services without consulting the public. My letter was to determine whether it was proposed to launch a consultative process; the lack of direct reply was, at best, unforthcoming.
The rules may have changed under which the NHS is obliged to consult – but it would be nonsense to describe this as a purely managerial development: of course it isn’t. Such is the secrecy and confusion within which the trust presently operates that my suspicion was that they didn’t know if they should have consulted the public or not. Fearing people wouldn’t like such a “reform”, they decided to present us all with a fait accompli.
If trust is to be maintained, and the joint trusts wish to prevent suspicions in their actions, they must become a great deal more responsive to concerns raised by those who depend on their services. If their response to those concerns was just to tell Healthwatch – assuming they did – this is not good enough.
I worked with the IW NHS through the Community Health Council and subsequent bodies, and on the Patient Council at St Mary’s. Management never reached perfection, but I had a great deal more faith in it then than I have now.
Robert Jones, Niton Undercliff