YP Comment: Patients are the only consultants that the NHS needs to hire

Though the cases concerned are deeply disturbing, and NHS trusts need to be more responsive and empathetic when serious shortcomings are highlighted – these can be a matter of life and death – most people are incredibly grateful for the quality of care that they do receive from the region’s hospitals.

This is reflected in the correspondence from readers of The Yorkshire Post as the major political parties trade insults – and statistics – about the day-to-day challenges being faced by A&E units at present, difficulties compounded by shortcomings in GP out-of-hours cover and growing pressures in the social care sector.

Like those patients who write to this newspaper on a regular basis, they are fulsome in their praise of hospital staff from humble porters to world-class surgeons. They want greater political recognition of the professionalism of the NHS workers and they believe that greater availability of family doctors, or more awareness about minor injuries units such as the facility at Wharfedale Hospital, will help to ease the strain on hospitals.

Perhaps Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt – and Theresa May for that matter – should start taking more notice of the people best qualified to comment on the true state of the NHS, namely the aforementioned patients, rather than perpetuating the political ‘blame game’ which has fuelled the current policy vacuum and led to the absence of a substantive and properly funded long-term plan.

For, while the Prime Minister correctly diagnosed out-of-hours GP cover as one of the root causes of the current problems that have been likened to a ‘humanitarian crisis’ by the Red Cross, her remedy was wrong. Instead of threatening to withdraw funds from those practices which don’t fulfil the Government’s requirements (a contradiction when Ministers talk about decisions being taken locally), Mrs May should be ensuring that Britain is training sufficient medical staff to meet the demands, and expectations, of an ageing society. It is not.

Brexit blues

UNLIKE David Cameron who asked for little, and secured even less, during his EU renegotiation, Theresa May and her team of Brexit Ministers – headed by Haltemprice and Howden’s David Davis – are, at the very least, putting a strategy in place and appear open to the idea to Britain leaving the EU single market so Parliament can determine future policy on immigration and judicial matters.

There’s also a degree of pragmatism as Mrs May prepares to deliver a keynote speech tomorrow – Mr Davis wrote yesterday that “we don’t want the EU to fail, we want it to prosper politically and economically”. However, while the contents of the PM’s speech are dissected before she has even spoken, it’s also imperative that she does not overlook two issues pertinent to Yorkshire’s future.

First, education. Unions say the Government’s new funding formula for schools masks the fact that the country needs to be spend more money if young people are to gain the skills, particularly in the computing and digital skills, that will enable them to succeed in the future.

Secondly, regional economies. Though a new industrial strategy is being formed, there’s a lingering belief that Mrs May has under-estimated the importance of the English regions, and opportunities that do exist. She needs to redress this, starting tomorrow.

Pothole poser

MOCKED when he launched his derided ‘cones hotline’, John Major’s initiative did, in time, lead to motorway roadworks being better planned in order to keep tailbacks to a minimum. Fast forward 25 years, perhaps the same principle should be applied to potholes, the current source of irritation, as the state of the nation’s roads deteriorates at a rapid rate.

Local authorities say they don’t have the money to tackle the backlog of repairs. Transport Minister and Harrogate MP Andrew Jones says they do as high-definition cameras are fitted to bin lorries in York to identify problem potholes. Yet, if drivers had a more effective means of reporting the worst potholes in return for the motoring taxes they generously pay rather than invariably trying, and failing, to make contact with unresponsive local councils, it might identify those routes in most urgent need of repair as the RAC highlights the damage being caused to vehicles because of poorly-maintained roads.