Thursday, February 15th, 2007

Tory hypocrisy over health service

I was shocked to hear the Conservatives announce a U-turn in their attitude to health reconfiguration. In a Plaid nominated debate on the future of neurosurgery in Morriston hospital, Swansea, Tory Health Spokesperson Jonathan Morgan made it clear that he thought decisions about the location of services should be left to medical professionals and not politicians. But today the Conservatives have announced that they would halt health reconfiguration across Wales.

It is political hypocrisy at its worst from the Conservatives. Last November the Tory health Spokesperson ignored all Plaid’s arguments about saving the Morriston neurosurgery department by arguing that Health Commission Wales professionals are always right and it is wrong for politicians to question them. Now he sees the chance to win some votes in the election he has decided that he would scrap the health commissions planned hospital reconfiguration. The Tories under funded the NHS for 18 years in government and now they flip flop around saying anything they think will gain them votes on the issue.

 What Jonathan Morgan said on 14th November:  “I am concerned that we are even having this debate today. I never believe, as a health spokesman, that it is the job of the Assembly to determine where each and every part of the health service ought to be located. It is dangerous for us to start dictating where services should be. I know that we will all have a view as to where services should be located. Often, those views are informed by constituency matters; sometimes, they are informed by a particular expertise that we may have. I look around the Chamber and I know of only two clinicians present. I do not think that anyone else in the Chamber has any degree of clinical expertise, works for Health Commission Wales, or has worked for a local health board or an NHS trust, yet Plaid Cymru is asking us to make a clinical decision as to where a particular service should be based. What next? Perhaps we should scrap Health Commission Wales and bring commissioning in-house—I hear sounds of ‘Hear, hear’ from the sides. Is that Plaid Cymru’s view of devolution? Should we get rid of expert advice and commissioning and take it in-house? I have never believed that it is the job of the Assembly to act as a bunch of mini health tsars dictating where each part of the NHS in Wales should be located. That is the road that you are asking us to take.” 

When I questioned Johnathan Morgan on the issue he even confirmed that it was a policy announcment. 

 

Rhodri Glyn Thomas: Is that party policy?

Jonathan Morgan: That is party policy. It is not only best left to those people who run the NHS in Wales, but to those who commission services and have the technical and clinical expertise. We do not have that expertise, and it is a dangerous road for the Assembly to go down to think that it can start taking these sorts of decisions.

 How quickly policy can change when there’s an election!

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