Obsession with secrecy bodes ill

Published: 6 May, 2010

• THE Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust claims that one of its guiding principles is “openness”. 
If this is so why is it excluding the public from larger and larger parts of its board meetings?
Over the past year and during the chairmanship of Richard Arthur, a former Labour leader of Camden Council, it has conducted more and more of its public meeting business in secrecy. 
Its latest documentation indicates that it proposes to abolish the public questions at the end of its meetings, questions which anyway have always had to be notified in advance.
This obsession with secrecy bodes ill for the local mental-health services. 
Decisions seem likely to be taken behind closed doors to effect the huge savings which it is known that this foundation trust must make in the next three years – £19 million. 
Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats give pledges that the National Health Service will be safe under their control. 
The problem is that with a foundation trust they do not exercise that control. 
The real question here is are the mental health services safe under the control of the foundation trust board?
SHELIA LAWS
Lawn  Road, NW3