Challenging the facts
I have reluctantly come to accept that the current predominance of Conservative MPS in our area means that we have to endure columns in their names, invariably now promoting excuses and novel Government approaches as we head towards a general election. However two recent pieces by Gillian Keegan MP have driven me back to my keyboard.
On 15 February she wrote about the illegal dumping of sewage in our seas and rivers. She criticised inaction by previous (Labour) governments, and claims she has “taken constructive action to stop the spills” which included setting up a three-mp “regional water forum”.
She asserts that “the government is working hard to hold those responsible to account”, and criticises the bonuses paid to directors of companies that pollute our waters.
But she ignores the fact that her own government has had 14 years to address the problem, during which they have overlooked the huge salaries paid to chief executives and directors, and the inevitability of big dividends paid to shareholders even when there were inadequate funds to pay for them without borrowing. All this was tacitly nodded through while the Victorian infrastructure was rotting away. The £90 million fine imposed on Southern Water illustrates the extent to which the government turned its face away from the issue, including when Ms Keegan and her colleagues opposed measures that would have ameliorated the problem of unlawful discharges.
Then on 22 February, Ms Keegan wrote about the CQC Report on St Richard’s Hospital, and the downgrading of its ratings. She makes several references to the impact of Covid, and stresses (rightly) that some of the services were deemed to be of a high standard. But while she acknowledges briefly that there are staffing pressures, she again relates those to Covid, and totally ignores the staff shortages that have led to the problems – especially in the surgery service, where almost 140,000 patients waited beyond the target time for their operations.
The Report said unequivocally that “the service did not have enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe”, and “did not always have suitable facilities to meet the needs of patients”. The Trustwide vacancy rate for Band 5 nurses had increased in just over a year from 8% to 19%, with the result that “the service did not have enough staff to keep patients safe from avoidable harm, and to provide the right care and treatment”. Morale and turnover rates in the nursing profession have been impacted by years of pay stagnation and the current cost-of-living crisis, and that must undoubtedly be laid at the door of Ms Keegan and her government colleagues who have kept pay increases in public services well below those in the private sector.
As long as assertions by Ms Keegan (and similarly by Andrew Griffith MP on topics such as planning and wind-farms) are presented as facts they really must be challenged.
‘Almost 140k patients waited beyond the target time for operations’