Health Warning - can you really trust the Tories and Labour? (Barnet Borough Liberal Democrats)

Barnet Borough Liberal Democrats <info@barnetlibdems.org.uk>

Health Warning - can you really trust the Tories and Labour?

May 1, 2010 10:08 PM

Local Lib Dems warn local hospitals under threat

A warning by Sean Hooker - Liberal Democrat Candidate for High Barnet Ward.

Whilst I welcome the recent statements from Labour and the Tories concerning the future of the Whittington hospital they come with a big health warning!

Many other battles are still to be fought.

Like Save Chase Farm Group, I share concerns over plans to downgrade the A&E and front-line provision in our part of North London. However there is nothing like elections to encourage politicians to jump on an easy political bandwagon. The public should be very wary of the two old parties' promises that the NHS is safe with them. We now have Labour and Conservatives both claiming that only they can be trusted to save our services.

The reality is however different and I know from experience what the true picture is:

I remember when the Tories were last in power,fighting the threat to the A&E at Barnet General. I was one of the principle organisers within the Lib Dems who arranged a public march of 5000 people through Barnet High Street to Save our Hospital. I cut my political teeth in this campaign, making my first public speech to the crowd after the march. We won the battle and I personally got over 1000 votes in the old Hadley Ward (predecessor of High Barnet) in 1994. Unfortunately this was not quite enough to win!

No sooner, however, that Barnet's services were saved, the Tory threat turned to Edgware Hospital A&E. The then Labour candidates in Hendon and Harrow, vehemently opposed the Tory plans, but once elected in the Labour victory of 1997, the new government implemented them anyway. The A&E closed and was replaced with a Minor Injuries Unit.

I continued to fight and became a member of the Barnet Community Health Council representing local people that warned that the merger between the Barnet Wellhouse Trust and Chase Farm would be a disaster. It was. Shortly after this in 2003 the Labour Government abolished the powerful CHC's and replaced them with weaker talking shops.

I continued to take a keen interest in Health provision as a Councillor and even under the Tory administration elected in 2002 I was a member of the The Strategic Partnership Board for Joint Commissioning between Barnet Council and Barnet Primary Care Trust:- that was until the Tory administration decided that opposition Councillors were not welcome on this body. Maybe it was the awkward questions I asked about front-line services such as night services in the Edgware Minor Injuries Unit, the abandoned Barnet Stroke Unit and the failure to build a Psychiatric Unit in the west of the Borough, that led to my exclusion? I still wonder what else the Barnet Tories were hiding.

I have therefore seen first hand the weasel words and political wrangling of the old parties and frankly this lack of democracy and accountability must stop. It is this that is one of my motivations to get back on the Council and change things for the better.

It is the double dealing and failure to deliver promises that have led to such anger with politicians and disillusionment in politics. We should not have to take the streets to be heard. Only the Liberal Democrats are serious about devolving decision making by setting up locally elected health boards, where you the public can decide what health services are important to you and make the right changes for your area. This is real change and change that works for you.