Pugh's View (1st April)

Friday, 01 April 2011

NHS committee is exhausting work

FANS of the old BBC sitcom ‘Are You Being Served’, which was set in an old fashioned department store will recall the oft repeated scene where the proprietor of Grace Brothers, young Mr Grace (who is of course about 92) plays his cameo part.

White haired and shaking he stands near the lift while all the staff line up and unsteadily waving his stick cries in a quavering voice, ‘You're all doing very well’ and then is escorted off by a young nubile nurse.

That appears to be the sum total of his contribution to the business. There are times when one envies the Mr Grace role – superfluous, benign importance.

Particularly this week when I have lurched from meeting to meeting like a character in a speeded up silent movie.

I feel exhausted and the week is not through. I had to get up at 6am this morning to do this column and to make sure I didn’t let the poor long suffering editor of the Visiter down as I did last week.

The reason for such energy sapping intensity is the NHS and if this keeps up, I may be needing it.

Last June the government rushed out unwisely radical plans for a revolution in how the NHS is run.

Currently those plans now in the form of a huge parliamentary bill are being scrutinised in committee line by line. Being on the committee commits me to 14 hours of committee work each week but that is not even the half of it.

The bill is flawed, the plans highly risky, the stakes high. Some predict the end of the NHS or the end of the government if the bill in its current form is implemented.

I have always been on the sceptic wing and since the proposals first saw the light of day last June have maintained efforts to amend, tone down and sanitise 'reform' proposals- sometimes to the annoyance of some colleagues but I hope always in a polite, thought through way.

After all some of the proposals like greater democratic accountability and increased emphasis on public health most people support. As time has gone on though the critics of the bill have multiplied and multiplied and the chorus of concern has become almost deafening.

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference was almost unanimous in calling for changes but so are a whole host of professional bodies.

My job this week has been to sound out all shades of opinion to see if there is agreement on a set of changes to the proposed law that would enable the NHS to progress without fracturing and which would command general support inside and outside parliament, across and between parties.

I dont know if that's possible.

I suspect the reason I have been entrusted with this role by my party is that I know the field (having been a party health spokesperson), appear to be rational and not shy about taking an independent line if necessary.

My reward though has been to be propelled into a whole series of meetings with nearly every group or faction-political or medical- that has an angle, view or insight into this fraught issue. My fear is that there may not be a solution or that the government may be unwilling to accept a solution or the politics of it all may get very messy.

I have fears I wish I could allay.

I believe governments can get things badly wrong even when as usually is the case they have good intentions and getting things wrong in healthcare will affect us all.

The legislation before parliament may be like the curate's egg ' good in parts' but it’s the bad parts that poison the system.

Little wonder that I think enviously of young Mr Grace and his ability to declare and believe that everything is going swimmingly and beaming to himself, go off to be pushed gently round the park by nurse.