Why Did No One Speak Out?

The tales of misery that have been told to the inquiry into Mid Staffs NHS Trust beggar belief. Patients have been humiliated, uncared for, left hungry and in enormous pain. This is one of the worst scandals to hit the NHS in its history. Yet, why did no one speak out. How did inspectors miss what was going on? I certainly can't understand why consultants, who would have seen exactly how things were, just carried on doing their rounds and then left to carry on their private work without once raising the alarm. Their must be a public inquiry to give the families the whole truth. For the Health Secretary to deny one would be another scandal.

Why Won't They Join In?

First, the Tories refuse to join in the conference today which was designed to try again to find some common ground on care for the elderly. Now, they have refused to even look at the plans being drawn up for a high speed rail link up the spine of the UK. The thing is, they are forever moaning about not knowing what is going on in Whitehall. Yet, now they have the chance to be involved at the early stages of two major issues, but won't. With an election coming up all the parties will be cautious about how they interact with each other, particularly with the possibility of a hung parliament. But this really is ridiculous. They claim that the health issue has become a party political football, but they made it that way by bailing out of informal talks with the health secretary and our Norman Lamb. Now they say much the same about the railways. As our transport spokesman said today "This peculiar decision of the Tories coupled with Osborne's spending cuts strongly suggest that the Tories are trying to kick high-speed rail into the long grass. The Tories can't be trusted with our railways." If they are trying to cut a pledge they have made for genuine economic reasons why not just say so?

Caring For Our Elderly

It is dispiriting to see the spat between Labour and the Tories over long term care for the elderly. All parties know that this is a massive issue for our country, and is in crisis now, let alone the projections of requirements for the future. Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem Health Spokesman, is still trying to get all 3 parties speaking again, as they had been until last week. I've known Norman for 4 years, and he is a man of enormous integrity and has a passion for his role. I know this subject is really important to him, like better provision for mental health care is too. I hope he can pull the other two parties back to the table. I'm at a disability event with him next month, so perhaps I can extract more detail on what's been going on. Watch this space....