HEALTH bosses now need to be frank with the public about the future of hospitals in north-west London.
With the leak of a previously secret plan, the primary care trusts must hold up their collective hands and admit that they are planning quite radical changes by relocating and centralising services on a regional rather than a trust by trust basis.
This is important stuff for Harrow. The time it takes you to get to A&E if you keel over with a heart attack is a matter of life or death.
So the fact ordinary citizens were being kept in the dark about what was being discussed will only deepen suspicion about the meddling proposed.
Part of the problem is the 72-page plan is written by health professionals for health professionals and littered with references to PIUs, UCCs, things called an 'acute commissioning vehicle' and 'care pathways' that mean nothing in everyday life and no doubt contributed to the interpretation by the BBC that NHS London branded 'a misunderstanding.'
It will need to be stripped of jargon and made straightforward and explicit if health trusts are to convince Londoners that the plans will actually 'improve' healthcare as claimed and are not simply borne out of desperation and a lack of money and are being considered because they can get away with it.
The NHS has a woeful record in communicating with the public, as this episode shows.
