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Wanted: politicians who will defend GP surgeries
• THE people of Camden deserve better than the tit-for-tat politics we are getting. The May 1 election for London Mayor has turned into a prize fight between Ken and Boris, where you can hardly tell their policies apart as they come to personal blows.
There is virtually no discussion about how the London Assembly and the Mayor could make a real difference to the issues that concern people, such as housing waiting lists, youth provision or inequalities in health. In Camden, councillors’ response to these issues is to blame each other. The Lib Dems blame the government. Labour blames the council.
So it goes on. Local people have shown they are prepared to stand up and fight to defend their NHS over GP privatisation. But local politicians have not risen to the occasion. David Abrahams (Lib Dem) organised an emergency health scrutiny committee meeting, but too late to stop the contract with United Health being signed. Theo Blackwell (Labour) wrote last week to complain, but he is a substitute delegate to the committee who has not attended once in the last year.
We need more than point-scoring in local politics. We need some principles and some backbone from representatives prepared to involve local people and give them a real voice, if we are ever going to get the change that people are crying out for.
Candy Udwin
Camden Respect Left List
Foolish to axe clinic
• THE Tottenham Mews walk-in mental health clinic in Fitzrovia is open to anyone, without a referral from a GP or a care plan (Walk-in scrutiny, March 20). All Camden residents can access help, not just vulnerable people who have been treated by the Mental Health and Social Care Trust.
Mental health is a public health issue. GPs look after 90 per cent of Camden’s mental health needs. The Primary Care Trust’s public health report says 37,000 people in Camden have mental health problems. It has made three recommendations: To provide support for those at risk of losing their jobs; to look at stigma in relation to accessing services; and to improve access to evidence-based psychological therapies.
Furthermore, the PCT’s strategic direction and commissioning plan for mental health services 2007-2009, under the heading of improving access to psychological therapies, says that, “recommissioning may be needed to improve the range of interventions and extend access”.
Unfortunately, being disabled with a mental health condition is not deemed serious enough to warrant mental health care and until “serious mental illness” is defined this gap in services will continue to exist.
Tottenham Mews provides a service in line with the recommendations. Surely, it is foolish to axe this community service without first putting into place alternative equivalent facilities. Internal health politics, between the PCT, the Mental Health and Social Care Trust and Camden Council, should not come before the needs of the community.
Jane Barratt
Chair of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum for Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust
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