Letters Extra - Hospital policy already set

Published: 8 April, 2010

• YOUR report (Budget will mean ‘unpalatable options’ – NHS boss, April 1) made depressing reading. 
Not so much for the bad news but because Rachel Tyndall exemplifies the smug indifference to public opinion which is so typical of the modern bureaucrat. Ms Tyndall is not going to listen to us or our councillors, let alone the Whittington’s consultants. She would appear to be saying that we must lose our A&E and maternity services at the Whittington because of looming £569million of cuts. The intent here is to make us all believe this is all down to the budget deficit. When I had to go to A&E some seven years ago, the total NHS budget was £65billion, today it is £105billion. Even allowing for inflation we should still be able to afford what we could afford seven years ago. That is if executives like Ms Tyndall have been doing their job properly by controlling costs and increasing productivity.
Efficiency savings there may have to be, but I believe that the profile of the proposed cuts has more to do with outsourcing our NHS. 
How much extra will we have to pay for PFI schemes? Does the polyclinics policy mean we also face losing our local GP surgeries? How much control over our health policy is in the hands of McKinsey, the American consultancy firm, to the benefit of faceless healthcare corporations? Is now the time to catch up on home-dentistry?
The policy has already been set. The decisions have already been taken. What remains is to try and “sell” the “unpalatable” policy to an angry public.  This is an executive which thinks “toughing it out” is the right approach to the wrong policy.
Your editorial comment summed it up perfectly. “Like so many experts, Ms Tyndall has tunnel vision. It is she who should go – not the A&E department.”
RICHARD ROSSER, N5