Health heading out of control?
SUPPORT for the under-fire Health & Social Care Committee from its colleagues on the Policy & Resources Committee seemed pretty heartfelt when its members appeared before the Scrutiny Management Committee last week.
Yet the ‘support’ carried at least a reasonable whiff of the infamous chairman’s vote of confidence to an under-pressure manager, the kind that is often followed, within a couple of weeks, by the sack.
P&R vice-president Heidi Soulsby carries the confidence of a ‘been-there done-that’ hardened campaigner, but she must know that many would wish that she were back at the helm of Health, even without the benefit of a chief officer, a point she made big play over.
Although the argument that HSC is so busy fixing broken bodies at the sharp end of health, does it really have the capacity to drive the health of the community and/or build a £100m. hospital extension, seems at least plausible, would it be argued if a committee with more confidence about its brief was in position?
With HSC next before Scrutiny in early May, it appears that a narrative is being built up that health services, and the cost of them, are now heading so far out of control that there are few within the States, or even outside of it, who would be able to cope.
That doesn’t bode well.