Health Matters: Solidarity over call for better healthcare in Leighton Buzzard
September has been a very busy month for our Campaign for better Healthcare provision in our town and I want to start by thanking all our volunteers and PPG colleagues for the time they dedicate and the commitment they show; Our town and ward councillors for their solidarity with us on this issue and the public for their growing support and participation.
Starting with our Vigil on September 6 we saw 200 plus people join in the silent protest about our current lack of Health Provision and Infrastructure Investment, we were interviewed on Anglia TV News , our Facebook group Leighton Linslade Health Matters! now has 450+ new followers in its first 10 weeks and created a YouTube channel where we will put highlights of meetings with the CBC and BLMK ICB on this vitally important topic.
We attended the Social Care Health and Housing meeting on the 9th September and witnessed nearly an hour of councillors expressing their frustration with the lack of cooperation or action from the BLMK ICB on the long awaited update to an Outline Business Case for the town and made our own statements about their unwillingness to address the Primary Care challenges our town faces and disagreed with the assertion that services added to our 50 year old clinic could be viewed as significant and were potentially only short term.
Consequently, at the Executive Meeting the following day there was an acknowledgement that there needed to be more robust approach in challenging the BLMK ICB on their strategies, poor communication and need to provide a fully detailed plan for the next meeting in November 2024.
The publishing of the Darzi Report two days later by a highly respected Surgeon only verified that our communities’ concerns and fears expressed over many years were valid. Key observations that “The NHS budget is not being spent where it should be – too great a share is being spent in hospitals, too little in the community, people are struggling to see their GP and that the system is top heavy with the number of staff in NHS statutory bodies with ‘regulatory’ type functions has doubled over the last 20 years, while the number of providers has halved are just some of the concerns.
On Monday we held our first Public Meeting with 40 residents and received lots of positive feedback and some great suggestions as to how we could improve our communications and engagement.
If you would like to know more please contact email [email protected] and we will be happy to provide you with information about Health Provision or our Campaign.