Update. Credit where it’s due. BBC News tonight published a comparison of the four health services – and NI comes out quite well. You’d think the Executive would make more of it.
I’m glad to see some signs of life in Dundonald House about the Health Service, after all the fanfares in England that greeted the launch of an “NHS Constitution” increasing patients’ rights. Whether this was in stealthy response to Slugger’s goading, I can’t say. They would never admit it and I would never be so bold as to claim influence with your governors. Sadly, Michael McGimpsey and the DHSS have taken one small step only, mainly about structures we already know about, and platitudes. Nothing so daring as a new charter of patients’ rights. Whether it’s better than nothing remains to be seen.
The BBC’s special reporting of the NHS at 60 has been influenced just a little by their new rule to reflect departures in S,W, and NI from the English norm.
I caught a little pan-UK round-up of health centres in the BBC News Channel this morning, headed by Mark Simpson in Belfast and then on to Wales etc.
Scotland gets a look-in in their NHS at 60 special webpage but as far as I can make out, it’s blanks only for W and NI.
The lutta continua!
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
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