Vale Councillors Deliver United Call For Change In The NHS

3.01.54pm GMT Mon 18th Dec 2006

Vale Councillors agreed to call on the government to stop meddling with the NHS and to give local professionals the power to deliver a first class service.

At their meeting on 13th December, Vale Councillors called on the Secretary of State for Health to;

· end excessive interference from Whitehall, demonstrated by the ten reorganisations of the NHS since Labour came to power;

· Let health professionals get on with their jobs without more interference from government;

· avoid setting up another national QUANGO filled with government appointees to run or oversee the NHS;

· involve local people in planning health services through decentralisation of decision-making to local, democratically accountable bodies, local people and clinicians;

· ensure fair funding for Oxfordshire, which receives significantly less money than all other parts of the country;

· commit to putting the future effectiveness of the NHS before tax cuts.

Councillors were told how the NHS in the Thames Valley finished the 2005-6 financial year with a collective deficit of £33 million and that almost 600 jobs were lost from the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust alone. They also expressed concern at how little consultation was taking place with local people over the changes brought about by financial pressures, including the current question mark over community hospitals in Abingdon and Wantage.

Cllr Chris Wise said: "I was very pleased that our call for a more local focus for the health service was supported by both parties. Plans for a national QUANGO to dictate targets are just tinkering. What everyone wants is services managed locally, with a strong input from the people who understand best what is going on in the NHS - the people who do the work and the people who use the services."

Delivering a very personal speech, Cllr Alison Rooke highlighted the case of her elderly father, who recently died after being well cared for in Abingdon's Community Hospital. Alison said: "While the individual care my father received was first class, it came as a surprise to me to find out just how hard I would need to fight to get him from the JR in Oxford into Abingdon hospital to spend what would be his last days close to his family. There was a fundamental split between different arms of the health service who were to all intents and purposes seeking to do the same job but who didn't really seem to understand each others' needs.

In the end I was lucky and my father was cared for in Abingdon during his last days. I wonder how many people have not been so lucky.

Our NHS needs a locally focused service, driven by the needs of the residents of the Vale and the wider county. Operational decisions and planning should involve the nurses, doctors, managers and elected local representatives who have the best idea about exactly what residents in our district want and need - because they are here 'on the ground'.

Government should set out the strategic direction for the service and co-ordinate it nationally but it should not meddle in day to day operations without very good reason.