View From The House - 24th June 1999

Reprinted From The Lichfield Mercury

As the Member of Parliament for Lichfield and Burntwood and villages (though my title says I am just the MP for Lichfield which, I know, is confusing) it's my job to get the best I can for my constituents. And my constituents know, or can find out, exactly who their MP is. There is no confusion about this either for my constituents or for me. The Government would like to bring in proportional representation as they did for the European elections. If they did it county wide, it would mean 12 MPs, each representing all of Staffordshire. Which ones would hold surgeries in Lichfield and Burntwood? Which one would you go to? Would any hold surgeries in Lichfield or Burntwood?

And what of conflicts of interest affecting the MP? Let me give you a very real and worrying practical example of something happening right now. As well as tinkering with the electoral system, the Government has changed the structure of the Health Service and the way doctors are funded. Unlike the past system in Lichfield, doctors do not now have control over where they send patients. (It was this change made a few years ago which assured the future of both the Victoria and Hammerwich hospitals. Local doctors decided they wanted to send their patients there. They no longer have those powers). They cannot now keep surplus funds aside for a bad year (if there were a bad flu outbreak, for example), and unlike in the past, emergency treatments will now come out of GP's budgets for regular care. It gets worse. The Minister of Health has confirmed to me that any deficits in the budget of the Health Authority will be deducted from GP budgets. This is particularly worrying in the Lichfield constituency as the local Health Authority is under-budgeted and now has to make dramatic savings of £15 million. Whereas before, the doctors had flexibility in how money was spent on behalf of their patients, there are now tight controls on what they should do, but with insufficient money from the Government to fund them. Already, the 24 hour community nursing service has been withdrawn from Lichfield and Burntwood. The Minister of Health has also confirmed that money can be moved across from one group of doctors in Staffordshire to another. So what has this to do with "conflicts of interest affecting the MP"?

Some tough decisions will soon have to be taken by professionals in the Health Service. We have four hospitals: The Victoria in Lichfield, the Hammerwich Hospital, the new Cannock Hospital and the new Sir Robert Peel Hospital in Tamworth. The Cannock Hospital is fine, but far too large for the locality (some health professionals think it "a white elephant") and the Robert Peel Hospital is at Mile Oak ("miles from anywhere"). My job is very clear. For good, clinical reasons, let alone community reasons, I will do everything I can to make sure that if cost savings mean closing altogether, or reducing the services at, either the Victoria or the Hammerwich Hospital in favour of the other two hospitals, I will resist it. (And I am resisting it now demanding cast iron guarantees off the relevant authorities. This not my being alarmist; it is to flush out the truth behind closed doors to reassure staff and patients alike). If I were the MP for all of Staffordshire under proportional representation, my loyalties would not be so straightforward as all four hospitals would fall in my constituency. This would be confusing both for me and for my constituents.

It is time this Government stopped coming up with 'bright ideas' to catch the headlines and started thinking through some of the consequences of their proposals instead.