I am an Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Whittington Hospital, London and Research Fellow at The Open University. I have background in local government also having been a councillor in Camden and leader of the council. I currently chair New Local Government Network.
I am a long standing member of the SHA and have served on Central Council before when I was active in contributing to policy on health and social care and campaigning against the Health and Social Care Act 2012, one of the many disastrous pieces of legislation of the Tory-led government. The most effective campaign still I have led (sadly – this was too long ago) was as a junior doctor when we fought off attempts to sell off land at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in order to prevent a US private hospital being built adjacent on the site.
In the debate on the NHS, I have been concerned to make sure that the left gets a balance between drawing attention to the huge challenges facing it – under-funding and under-staffing, fragmentation, growing demand; wasteful and repeated re-organisations and privatisation – but still making clear that as a system funded by general taxation and free at the point of delivery, it is the best way to organise health care. We must avoid giving succour to those who would do away with such a system, still the envy of the world.
The SHA should be seen as indispensable to the Labour Party and the left more widely offering radical and rigorous thinking that:
– facilitates working together services across primary, community and hospital services and social care;
– improves quality especially in mental health services and services for this with learning disabilities;
– recognises that the most effective care is a partnership between professional and patient;
– effectively addresses growing inequalities;
– and maintains the integrity of the NHS, funded by general taxation and free at the point of delivery.