Newspaper Column – The Cornishman – 07/10/24

• I’ll speak at the West Cornwall Healthwatch Annual Meeting this Friday 11th October – at 7pm in St John’s Hall, Penzance – along with the highly respected now retired consultant physician, Dr David Levine. We jointly drafted, along with others, a Prospectus for the restoration of West Cornwall Hospital a couple of years ago. 

It’ll be a good opportunity to look forward. Can we help the new Government rebuild and restore our NHS and care services? The last Conservative government left the NHS in its worst crisis in history. Does the Darzi Review really offer a route to save our NHS? Though his analysis is helpful, without the resources to address the mess they’ve been left with, it’s hard to see how our NHS will be able to mend itself with motivational pep-talks and yet another reorganisation.  

The Health Secretary’s revelation that the last government’s ‘New Hospital Programme’ was built on yet more evidence of unfunded Johnsonian bluster has thrown doubt on whether the much-needed Women and Children’s Hospital at Treliske will go ahead at all. I’ll update on our efforts to put this back on course. The future of West Cornwall Hospital and the need to secure 24/7 Urgent Treatment services there remains on the agenda. West Cornwall Healthwatch has been a strong and respected local campaign body for nearly three decades. It’s been a pleasure to work closely with them on many successful joint campaigns. This is a public meeting, so please come along if you want to hear more.  

• The death, maiming, destruction and displacement of innocent people across the Middle East just gets progressively worse. Our PM and the US President say they “Stand with Israel”. I “Stand with peace” 

Of course I stand with the Israeli people, but also with the Lebanese people, the Palestinians, those still being bombarded in Gaza and the West Bank, in Beirut and throughout Lebanon. I also applaud the use of our military to protect innocent life in Israel. But if we can do that, we should offer and provide the same to protect the thousands of innocent people who have been killed, maimed and displaced and who are being attacked by Israel. I fear our PM has allowed himself to stand with the far-right Netanyahu regime, rather than just the Israeli people. We should stand for peace and for an even-handed approach to conflict resolution, a ceasefire, restoration of peace talks and promotion of the two-state solution.  

• I’ve just returned from a few days meeting people across the most westerly part of the constituency – ie the Isles of Scilly. I’ve always seen the islands as a separate constituency within the constituency. Everything is so different. And they seem to face an abnormally large range of challenges at present: from the usual difficulties with chronic lack of affordable homes, the expense of inter-island transport, post-16 education and much more. A substantial caseload to get on with…