Kevan Lim

The current campaign about the future of Heart Attack treatment being lead by the Ipswich evening star has generated an enormous amount of correspondence and views.

Everyone seems to assume that the transfer of some patients to specialist centres will be dangerous for those patients in Ipswich.

However it is clear that the professionals recommending this change seem to believe it will save lives.

The real problem is that none of the implications of the change were clearly spelt out a year ago when it was approved by the Strategic Health Authority which was a major blunder and the evening star never campaigned against the change until a few weeks ago just before it was due to start. Another big mistake.

That’s why I have been pressing the County Council’s scrutiny committee to discuss in detail the proposed changes to understand what they actually mean for patients and why it is claimed they are better for treatment.

That will now happen on the 20th July.

Unfortunately this whole debate has been turned into a political football with the leader of the county council claiming that the changes will put lives at risk and he will stop it.

I don’t think such statements are helpful. We need a decision that saves the most lives and makes the care of heart attack patients better. I am not certain yet whether that should be in specialist centres or in Ipswich.

What we need on the 20th July is a full and clear explanation of the implications of the changes and then the review needs to determine what is best for Ipswich patients.

The current campaign against the changes has given us a delay which now enables a sensible review of the implications.

That review should produce a decision that is in patients and families best interests whether or not it is necessarily in line with any editor or politicians view.

With all the anger over MP’s expenses their is a tendency for lots of people on phone in programmes and television shows to claim the simple solution is to have more independents elected. The assumption seems to be that being an independent will mean that you have all the answers.

Yet we already have plenty of evidence of how an independent system can fail to deliver real accountability.

The current evening star campaign against the changes to heart attack services is a prime example of decisions being taken by so called independents with little understanding or concern about the implications or the public reaction to such decisions.

The health service now in the East of England is run by a so called independent arrangement. Members of the Strategic Health Authority and the board at Ipswich Hospital are all appointed by the appointments commission. Its so called independence means that in Ipswich for example we have a board with a chairman who does not even live in Suffolk and a board with no local Ipswich representation. Their are no local councillors of any party on the board.

Its little wonder that decisions like the transferring of heart attack services take place.

The creation of an independent culture doesn’t lead to greater accountability. I have never been in favour of the separation of health from local government.

Most of this separation has ironically happened because of demands to loosen day to day management of the health service from control by Government.

The reality is that as you create more impendent arrangements you actually divorce local councillors and other public representives from control of key local services leading to control by appointed independents who have accountability to no one and often little understanding of the needs or demands of the population they are actually supposed to be serving.