Camden News
Publications by New Journal Enterprises
spacer
  Home Archive Competition Jobs Tickets Accommodation Dating Contact us
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
Letters to the Editor
 
Royal Free stories do not help morale

I am completely fed up with the New Journal running scare stories about the Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead. Such stories do not help morale at the hospital.
How can you take the word of one patient and say morale is at an all time low? In any huge institution like the Free, there are successes as well as failures. when did the New Journal last have a headline about the successes? Plenty of patients write appreciative letters after they’ve had successful treatment.
The hospital is at the forefront of many medical advances, and patients come from all over the world for its specialist and expert treatment.
Along with many friends and relatives, I have reason to thank the Royal Free for successful operations and other treatments over many years. I’ve had eight operations, as well as blood tests and other routine investigations, such as endoscopy, leading to successful interventions. As I get older, I expect I’ll be visiting more often, and may even end my days there.
I am immensely grateful that it is there and the NHS looks after us all, as medical care gets ever more complicated and expensive.
Please stop your obsessive campaign against its management and non-clinical staff. They are all important in the teamwork that is required to deliver modern medical care. I think the CNJ is an excellent campaigning newspaper, but please lets have a more balanced view of the NHS in general, and the Royal Free in particular.
TH
NW5



• Your unnamed correspondent has missed an important point (Not so rosy at the Free April 13).
The Friends of the Royal Free Hospital (a registered charity) have been offered temporary use of the former flower shop premises at a nominal rent and we will soon be opening Friends Gifts – a branch of the Friends shop – in this space. Unlike any other retailer our charitable status requires that all the net profits be used for the benefit of patients.
The Friends’ Trustees ensure that this is achieved and in 2005 the Friends shop provided over £75,000 towards extra amenities and equipment for patients throughout the hospital. Friends gifts will enable us to raise even more funds in the coming year and we hope that patients, visitors and staff will continue to support this important facility in their local hospital.
NICKY BEGENT
Chairman
Friends of The Royal Free Hospital
Pond Strett
NW3



Your paper has rightly raised concerns about the cuts in staffing and ward closures at the Royal Free Hospital in recent weeks but your readers may not know why Camden Council could not do more to intervene.
Since 2002, local councils have had the duty in law to scrutinise local health services. But where a local hospital trust proposes significant changes to the way they operate, any effective scrutiny of the decision, before it is implemented, can only happen if the local authorities of the areas affected work together through a joint scrutiny committee.
This process was obviously the brainchild of a New Labour spin doctor who wanted to give the impression that more powers were being offered to local authorities.
However in practice, when the more controversial decisions need to be challenged, it is incredibly difficult to do. In the case of the Royal Free’s cuts, while Camden’s Overview and Scrutiny Commission wanted to set up a joint scrutiny committee, the Tories running Barnet scuppered the opportunity to do so, thereby letting the Royal Free’s Trust Board get away with it.
Why Barnet’s Tories did not believe that speeding up the discharge of patients, after a wide range of operations, is not a significant change in the service on offer, is beyond me. Perhaps it is because detailed scrutiny for them is too much like hard work.
The Lib Dems on Camden Council will do everything they can to monitor the effect of the cuts on patients, but without a reform of the scrutiny system by the New Labour government, and without some serious commitment from the Tories to look after patients’ interests, it could be an uphill struggle.
Councillor JOHN BRYANT (Lib Dem)
Belsize Road
NW6


Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.
 
spacer














spacer


Theatre Music
Arts & Events Attractions
spacer
 
 


  up