My column from Saturdays newsletter: It’s a financial deal worth endorsing As the Assembly gets back into business there is bound to be the usual party point scoring and bickering about the merits of the financial package agreed before Christmas. I believe that what was negotiated represents a good outcome and leaves us in good standing for the future. The aim of the DUP was to create a foundation for a sustainable economic future and to get public finances on a sounder footing, incentives for growing the private sector and finance for any additional expenditure to deal with the contentious issues of the past and parades. At a time when public sector spending is being cut across the UK it was unrealistic to expect huge injections of cash from Westminster but there was considerable scope for effecting change by having greater flexibility over the money already at our disposal. Despite what critics have said this was not a begging bowl exercise nor does it represent reckless borrowing to kick economic problems down the road until after the election. The additional borrowing will enable the Executive to reduce the public sector workforce, freeing up money used on wages to repay the loans and then plough into services and investment in skills and job promotion. The borrowing will enable the Executive to invest today in order to save tomorrow. Secondly the agreement to introduce Welfare reform means that we no longer have the Damocles’ sword of charges for the non-implementation of welfare reform hanging over our heads. Furthermore legislation will now be introduced to devolve Corporation Tax, giving the Executive greater ability to attract investment which will grow the private sector and increase jobs. Thirdly the additional funding for various bodies and policies to deal with the vexed issue of the past, lifts the financial burden of those issues from the current budget. The outcome is a good one for N.I., the limited cards available were used to good effect and N.I. will experience long term economic benefit from it. Why we can never have a serious debate around health David Cameron had a real set to with Ed Milliband around the NHS service at Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday. The Labour leader had boasted that he intended to “weaponise” the Health Service in the run up to the general election. The Tory benches were appalled and howled their outrage at this abuse of such an important issue. However the truth is that Ed Milliband is not alone in this. Trade unions, doctors, every two bit politician who wants to get onto the air waves and the media have all joined the Health Service weaponisation bandwagon. After all the, heart rending copy, sensational headline potential, political point scoring opportunities provided by a some tragic account of an individual’s experience in an overcrowded hospital, is not to be missed. Facts are never allowed to get in the way and consistency of argument is too much to expect. As readers of this column may know I have little respect for our local media who are a brazen faced, shallow, bunch of opportunists, but even they plunged new depths this week. As a result of a sudden surge in demand at A&E hospitals at the beginning of the week, 4916 people presented themselves at A&E in the first three days of the week. The numbers varied by 25% over the three days so delays were inevitable. Crisis and Chaos screamed the Irish News and Belfast Telegraph as 91 of those 4916 had to wait more than 12 hours for a bed. The facts were that due to good planning N.I. coped far better than any other part of the UK or the Irish Republic where 600 were left waiting more than 12 hours for a bed. Indeed Radio Five Live contacted our Health Department to find out what had been done to avoid the problems faced in GB. After taking up office, Jim Wells the Health Minister had visited every A&E to see what plans they had in place to deal with surges in demand. The combination of additional in-patient bed capacity, additional staff which could be called in at short notice, postponement of non-urgent surgery and additional ward rounds and patient review enabled capacity to be increases quickly. However here is the cynical twist to the story. Two days after squealing about our A&E crisis and predicting that cutbacks raised concern about the future of emergency care, blazoned across the front of the Irish News was a picture showing two people sitting in the A&E at the Royal Victoria Hospital with the headline “What Crisis” followed by complaints about the cancellation of non urgent operations. To crown it all the same day as it was querying where the A&E crisis was, a letter arrived from the same paper demanding to know what was being done to deal with the crisis. You really couldn’t make it up. To put the postponment of operations in context, in order to divert resources to deal with the increase in A&E demand, 179 non urgent operations out of a total of 1240 were postponed. It is all part of the balancing act of running an organisation where demand cannot always be predicted or where demand for services is not always constant but such complexities are ignored. The truth is of course that we have to get people educated to use A&E only when there is an emergency otherwise this expensive form of health care will create an unnecessary drain on scarce resources. GPs must be more flexible in their availability to patients. By making better health decisions and managing their own conditions many people could avoid having to visit hospital. Enabling people to remain in their own homes will free up scarce hospital beds. All these measures will take time and changes in attitude but the alternative of doing nothing and having to pour more money into the NHS which takes up 40% of spending already, is unsustainable. Instead of lurid and contradictory headlines our media could do a valuable service by helping engage the public in a serious debate on this most important of services.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 11:18:49 +0000
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