Open letter to Paul Scully, Conservative parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam:

I live between and use both St Helier and Epsom.

As a general priniciple, and having responded and attended meetings about “Better Healthcare, Closer to Home” (what did happen to that? Sank without trace including a question to a Surrey County Councillor who denied its existence some twelve months after.) I believe that the complex workings of the allocation of specialists, maternity or cancer units etc must follow the economic arguments tempered by accessibility.

I was very impressed, in that consultation, with the tables of the number of (say) births, expected in a particular catchment, and the need for an appropriate cohort of specialists, clinicians, maternity staff etc to handle these births; weighed against the travel needs of mothers and of their visitors. The fact that these considerations make a complex case for different specialisms to have differing locations and unit size was, at least in that consultation, very compelling.

The difficulty I have is that on a reading of fifteen minutes I do not begin to have sufficient understanding of the complexity to make a case for one or other solution to these issues. I am sure that my MPs and Councillors are doing their best to represent local needs, but I am never convinced that this is other than special pleading. Therefore, I hope you and your colleagues are looking over the shoulders of the planners and questioning every issue. BUT without spending more time and acquiring an expertise that life itself does not allow me to acquire, I would prefer that my vote in a “referendum” of special pleading were not used to influence the decision.

The solution that results from the MP who shouts loudest is hardly going to be the optimum solution to the complex balancing act that is running the NHS. The only thing this suggests is that local control, such as is now being set up, may be the best way. But what do I know?

Thank you for your communication.

And what did happen after the previous consultation entitled “Better Healthcare, Closer to Home”?

I even travelled to consultations in Merton to make a judgement about that one.

David R. Butler
Banstead