\n Extensive top-down reforms have been very expensive in terms of money and staff morale.\n<\/p>\n
\n The NHS has been a fertile ground for the ‘let’s try this’ approach.\n<\/p>\n
\n The staff who work in the NHS, delivering care to patients, largely want to be left to do their job to the best of their ability without constant interference; they, after all, are the experts in patient care.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the 80s, I started my career in the neonatal unit of a district hospital. At the time, it was at the forefront of the sensitive handling of neonatal bereavement.\n<\/p>\n
\n All units do this now, encouraging parents to hold their baby, take photos and foot\/hand prints, and offer personal support, but it started in High Wycombe. It was even specially designed for this work.\n<\/p>\n
\n I recently learned it had been closed. A telephone call revealed no official awareness of its pioneering work, taken away from an ordinary district hospital like Salisbury.\n<\/p>\n
\n Spinal unit? What next? Burns? Cleft lip and palate surgery? All areas of nationally significant expertise in Salisbury. Does someone in Westminster have a grudge against Salisbury?\n<\/p>\n
\n They\u2019re moving Porton Down. The people of our city have long supported Porton Down and those who work there. It was vital in responding to the poisonings.\n<\/p>\n
\n Perhaps they\u2019ll decide to move the Cathedral, far too big and important for Salisbury.\n<\/p>\n
\n As for healthcare, this country\u2019s system is very advantageous to private healthcare; the NHS allows it to avoid care it judges too expensive.\n<\/p>\n
\n It only gets involved in the NHS if it is to its advantage.\n<\/p>\n
\n We need a government and a health secretary who are realistic about for-profit care.\n<\/p>\n
\n The NHS is not failing; it is being failed.\n<\/p>\n
\n If it does collapse, it will be a health crisis to dwarf Covid, the effects of which no one could avoid by relying on private care, which would be totally inadequate to cope and probably wouldn\u2019t want to.\n<\/p>\n
\n Veronica Burton\n<\/p>\n
\n Riverside\n<\/p>\n
\n Wilton\n<\/p>\n