Health centre: it’s a case of decision made, matter over

Published: 16 July, 2010

• BARB Jacobson’s letter on the struggle to keep Finsbury Health Centre open was timely (End health centre saga, July 2).

It seems that the well-renumerated top-bods at Islington’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) – the quango that decides which health services are provided where – have rejected the council’s excellent case for the refurbishment of Berthold Lubetkin’s pioneering, still-functioning Clerkenwell centre.

They appear to be sticking with their mantra that refurb of the centre, home to several GPs’ surgeries and various clinics as well as an important piece of social and medical history, would be too expensive.

They’ve estimated an upgrade of the building at £10million, against the council’s carefully costed lower figure of £6million.

As part of their justification for selling the grade I-listed building they have argued that a new-build polyclinic is needed in the north of the borough. Yet it now seems that proposals for a £10million centre in the south – the same location and cost of refurbing Finsbury Health Centre – are under active consideration and will be presented to the PCT board at its July 22  meeting.

Whether or not the non-executive members of the board, who are each paid between £5,000 and £15,000 a year to “represent” Islington residents, alongside the chair’s £45,000, have been advised of the apparently arbitrary decision to close the health centre is unclear.

What isn’t in doubt is that there will be no public discussion of the matter and that the presentation of the council’s report arguing the case for keeping the health centre open will be a formality.

Decision made, matter closed, it seems, as far as the PCT’s chair and chief executive are concerned.

The board has not been asked to vote on the issue.

Questions about the PCT’s democratic accountability don’t stop with how the decision to close the centre has been reached but include selection of the trust’s members – how were they chosen and from among whom?

If public officials are to be accountable to those whose interests they allegedly represent, public participation is key, as it is to all democratic development.

In the case of the health centre, this has clearly not been the case.

At the time of writing, the government’s health chief has just announced the abolition of all the country’s PCTs, but this won’t take effect until next year – when many managers will, of course, be redeployed in a different guise.

Before then, it’s up to residents to hold Islington PCT accountable for its decision on the health centre, and so a demonstration has been arranged from 8am on Thursday outside 338 Goswell Road.

Members of the public will be allowed into the meeting but, it seems, barred from speaking.

MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7