Time for us to stand up and be counted for NHS

Published: 25 February 2010

• I LISTEN to my neighbours and local community often, as chair of our tenants’ association.
I also listen to the views of the wider area, and pay attention to what my local politicians and prospective candidates have to say.
It’s very obvious that we’re all very worried about our healthcare, both present and future. When services are going to close, and affect us, we worry.
One issue everyone is united on is the closure of the Whittington’s A&E department.
Frank Dobson MP, George Lee and Jo Shaw, as well as my local councillors, are dead set against the prospective closure. This being election time, I’ve had plenty of literature through my door to confirm this.
I can’t help thinking that this is one issue where politics is a consequential part of their campaigns. There is a cross-party consensus both at government and local government level that the closure of the Whittington’s A&E department would be detrimental to residents and workers across Camden, and other parts of London.
Yes, it’s election time, but isn’t this one issue that’s important enough to us all that all local politicians campaign together against this  single cause?
Cameron, Brown and Clegg have managed it, so why can’t the local politicians? It’s only by sending a clear and united signal to the NHS that whoever is in power later this year, their plans will be opposed.
Camden Council have recently written to all tenants’ and residents’ associations to remind us that the role we play is non-partisan and not to display political campaign material on websites or notice boards. Conver­sely, all parties are campaigning separately on their own merits so we, as local community organisations, are unable to show support to the level we could under a united and all-encompassing campaign.
Is it beyond the realms of possibility that the people with the largest voice against the closure of the Whittington A&E shout together?
SIMON LAMROCK
Chair, Somerton House TRA, WC1