Maidstone Weald Labour Party

Since it's institution in 1948 the NHS has faced many challenges. Aneurin Bevan the Labour Health Secretary of the time said at the launch of the service that " We shall never have all we need. Expectations will always exceed capacity. The service must always be changing, growing and improving..."

How though can we alter the status quo that I have observed as a doctor having worked both in the community and in the secondary care hospital system?
I would propose that we move from a Government lead model to an NHS board. This would have the aim at looking at a more longer term approach to the NHS than that of trying to win the next election and the obvious pressures on ones jobs that this system delivers. This is really a work in progress and any comments would be much welcomed in a debate about healthcare.

There are two structures that I would propose:

1. A group that consists of the major representatives of those within the NHS structure. This would include (but not exclusively please feel free to suggest others) the heads of the following bodies:

British Medical Association, Unison, A patient advocate, Chief Medical Officer, NHS Chief Executive, the Head of the Accountancy firm, NHS Audit representative, the Secretary of State for Health, a prescribing expert.

A number of questions though would arise from this. A number of these positions are appointed by the Government so it could not be independent. Anyone that has also sat through meetings on committees would also though be aware that decision making could be a difficult process as rightly each group would be fighting the corner of it's members. Could this therefore be a working group, but again a major complaint is that the NHS already has too many levels of bureaucracy. Therefore I would propose a far more radical system.

2. The Supreme Court model - this would follow the model for the NHS that the Supreme Court has followed for judicial matters in many countries . It would consist of one chairperson and eight associates. The appointment of the members would be made initially by the Houses of Commons to be approved by the House of Lords and this would therefore be a cross party decision. The appointments would be made until retirement of the committee members. The Government of the time would then nominate a new member that would need to be approved by both Houses. This would therefore lead to a balanced committee given the vetoing powers of the Houses. Within this structure each position would have a defined expertise similar to those proposed for a working group, e.g. a patient advocate, a nursing expert, a physicians expert. The panel itself would be accountable to both Houses and they would have powers to take further action if needed.

At the Labour Party Conference Bill Clinton said that we needed to be in the "ideas game" and that we are the party of change. In 1946 under a Labour Government we introduced the National Health Service Act and now we should not be scared of it changing, growing and improving.

HELP MAIDSTONE HOSPITAL GET BETTER FOR PATIENTS

Given our current advertising of our website we thought it important once again to put our position on the current issues of local healthcare provision.

Maidstone and the Weald Labour Party note with increasing concern the current situation with our local hospitals and its effect on patients.

We welcome the fact that maternity services will not be relocated to the new Pembury site for the next few years. We believe that there should be no significant changes until the new hospital is operational and hospital services should not be downgraded.

We note the vote of local British Medical Association members in which 129 doctors voted in favour of not transferring services from Maidstone to the Kent and Sussex hospital in Tunbridge Wells before the new Pembury hospital is operational.

We do though believe that we should remember that there is a discussion to be had about the changes within the NHS but our priority remains the patients and their healthcare needs.

We do not believe that the downgrading of services at Maidstone Hospital should occur until a new hospital is up and running.

Even at this stage we have grave concerns about the poor rail and road connection between the two sites. We believe that the costs of the journey will be a barrier to people attending out-patients appointments.

We should also note that some of our constituents do live near to the new hospital site, but others far away and we worry that some of the less well off and those that are more at risk will have difficulties with the journey, or the possible expense.

NO PARKING CHARGES FOR PATIENTS.

Given the only option for many will be to drive we would call that there be no parking charges imposed at this site for patients and adequate parking is available.

We will actively campaign on this platform to try and influence those making these important decisions. To that end this press release will be sent to the local press, and the Chief Executive of both the Primary and Secondary care trusts and to the Government.

THIS PRESS RELEASE ALSO COINCIDES WITH THE LAUNCH OF OUR WEBSITE WWW.MAIDSTONELABOUR.CO.UK OR WWW.MLP.ORG.UK AND ALSO OUR BLOG.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT JOHN HUGHES – 01622 745250 OR DR RAV SEERUTHUN - 07969192461 OR EMAIL INFO@MAIDSTONELABOUR.CO.UK