I’ve just received e-mail notification that the Prime Minister’s Office has responded to the petition that so many of you signed. Here is the link:
Military Hospital Petition Response
Use the comments section of this post to tell me what you think. My immediate take is that it does not address the claim that Selly Oak didn’t have the capacity to handle the casualties from one para unit in one campaign…
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I’m not particularly surprised at this response, though I am disappointed. At least now I can understand the reasoning behind the decision to close the military hospitals - though I still have misgivings about it.
But I’m still concerned that the claims of underfunding aren’t addressed. The Goverment seems to be in denial about the failure of the NHS to meet the needs of the UK population as a whole, let alone service personnel. Again, I’m not surprised that the specific claim about 2 Para and Selly Oak wasn’t addressed, as (so far as I can see from the No. 10 website) it didn’t form part of the petition. But the overall question of funding military healthcare still needs to be addressed with more urgency than at present.
In the interest of transparency I feel there should have been a link to the detailed results of the 2007 satisfaction survey that was mentioned. It’s very easy to mask dissatisfaction with weasel wording in surveys - both in the survey questions and in the reports they give rise to - and while the quality of the medical treatment may have been excellent, there may well have been discontent with the overall patient care. As the replies to your original posting state, the environment in a military hospital (I’ve visited two, for family confinements) is different from a civilian one.
Well caught, Dave. I forgot to re-read the petition before commenting on the failure to address the 2 Para claim.
I agree with you that the response quoted only what it wanted to from the results of the 2007 satisfaction survey - and that doesn’t surprise me, either.
Like you, I can now understand the reasoning behind the decisions that were made, but I think the scope of their study (the technical quality of clinical care) were too narrow.
Just what I was expecting! Weasel words from a lot of chair-polishers and bean-counters. We USED to look after our own … now we expect the NHS to do it and, as they’ve shown several times in the past, they couldn’t run a whelk stall!
Strong sentiments from a man whose full-time career was the RAF. Keith, do you still have contact with any ex-forces people? I’d like to hear more comment from those directly affected.