A busy week.. Keeping an eye on the health debate, Celebrating a 100 years of Women in Public Life
I have had a busy but every enjoyable Shoreham-related week.
On Monday, Ricky Daniel and I attended the final West Sussex PCT public consultation meeting on the Fit for the Future proposals, held in Pulborough. I was very interested to discover that the PCT is listening closely to the concerns about the implications of the proposals for local hospitals that the public has expressed. At the meeting John Wilderspin of the PCT made it clear that alternatives to the three proposals in the document are being actively considered – new suggestions that could mean significantly more accident and emergency services being retained at Worthing Hospital. Sir Graham Catto, the President of the General Medical Council, has been appointed the chair of a new options assessment panel to look at new options. I strongly urge the clinicians at Worthing to take advantage of this opportunity to press for a rethink, to ensure the best balanced configuration of local services and regional centres of excellence.
But it is worth remembering that these reconfiguration proposals come against the background of huge increases in public spending on the NHS locally and nationally. It is simply wrong to suggest that these are ‘cuts’- and politically inspired scaremongering to imply that our hospitals are ‘at risk’. Remember; since the NHS was founded nearly sixty years ago there have been profound changes on medicine and medical technology which demand new types of treatment in new facilities. Thousands more lives of stroke and heart attack victims are saved because of these advances, for example, because serious cases get access to high-tech specialist case in centres of excellence that could only have been dreamed about ten years ago.
At the same time, many treatments can and should be delivered closer to home – including debilitating radiotherapy or chemotherapy for example. And it is entirely right for residents in a predominantly rural area like West Sussex to have concerns about journey times. The PCT undertook a public consultation – and local people need to feel their legitimate concerns are being listened to.
All of these factors and many more need to be balanced up by the PCT. With the Catto panel there is a welcome chance to look again at all the options and their implications. I feel that only with the Clinicians, Politicians and the public working together can we secure the best possible outcome for the people of West Sussex.
Then on Tuesday I was privileged to attend a wonderful event in Worthing hosted by the Mayor of Worthing. It was an afternoon celebrating 100 years of Women in Public Life, as this year marks 100 years since Women were elected into local government bodies. During the afternoon, I was privileged to hear speeches from Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone - Virginia Bottomley - who had some amusing tales of her political career, and the artist Rosa Branson. Also present was Jo Swinson MP, the current youngest MP of the house, and she was very supportive of my candidature and efforts to get young people involved, which was really nice of her. I was honoured to be invited to do a ‘talking heads’ session with the mayor on stage, where I got the chance to talk about some of the women in my family who were involved in politics, and also my hopes for democracy in Worthing today. We have made great strides in getting more Women into local and national bodies, but we have much more to do with women still being heavily under-represented (only 3 in 10 councillors are women). As is the case with getting more young people, and those from different ethnic minorities, we need to work to make representative bodies more representative of those they serve.
After a rehearsal all night on Wednesday, on Thursday I was invited to Oxford University to speak to the students at the Labour Club. While I felt apprehensive, as of course I am only now applying to the university, I had a great time and met some fascinating and engaging people. They asked some very taxing questions, and I hope I dealt with them well. I have been invited to other schools to talk about my experiences so far, which while it has not been easy, has been enjoyable and rewarding.
Don’t forget I want to keep hearing from all of you, just get in touch.
Hope you are all well,
Emily
