Letters / Trojan Horse
It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it, everyone at SIC and NHS Shetland working together as one big happy family? “Well, ..maybe aye an’..maybe no?”
It’s really very churlish of the council to be hostile to such warm enthusiasm from the captains of NHS Shetland… isn’t it? “Well, maybe aye an’..maybe no?”
Why would NHS Shetland be so keen to cooperate and the council be so sulky over a mere bagatelle like losing democratic control?
We may well ask and the answer could be staring us in the face.
Following the intervention by charities regulator OSCR in the row at Shetland Charitable Trust (SCT) over Viking Energy during which OSCR performed a remarkable somersault from their initial view (I wonder why?) it ended up aiding the railroading through of undemocratic control of SCT, effectively, insulating trustees from retribution at the ballot box.
SCT now has a majority of unelected “trustees” with a heavy representation from the unelected board of NHS Shetland. That is both undemocratic and incestuous.
Once the previous council had disregarded the advice of its own planning officers and rubber-stamped the Viking Energy application to avoid a local public inquiry they opened the gate for the Scottish government to railroad the project through which they did “in short order.”
That cleared the way for SNP ministers to seize the SIC’s annual £2.3m housing support grant in a kind of SIC “Trump Moment” the principle of which is, crudely, “suck up to them till you get what you want and then boot them in the goolies.”
The next step is to remove democratic control of the social care services from councils via a kind of “Trojan Horse” arrangement in which NHS officers would be appointed to committees ostensibly set up to oversee joint arrangements but which would dilute democratic control of the social care services. Legislation to enforce this is being planned.
Unpopular councillors will lose out in public arguments versus the “sacred cow” NHS which will lead inexorably to the takeover of social care services by NHS Shetland i.e. takeover by the centralising Scottish government who will eventually appoint commissars to run the joint operation, controlled by Edinburgh and crucially, insulated from the plaintive cries of democrats.
Meanwhile SIC will be left to “use its reserves” (Margaret Burgess, housing minister to Shetland Times) and NHS Shetland and hence, Edinburgh, will be running the social care services while also having their hands in the till at the now undemocratically-controlled charitable trust.
A clear divide exists between responsibility for well-being and actual provision of care and there is much to be said for having a different group with overall responsibility for, say, elderly patients’ well-being who can act as advocates and indeed independent witnesses for them if necessary.
The NHS “production line” culture is unsuited to this more personal aspect of care in which communication with patients and relatives is a crucial feature.
Joint operation of health and social care services as appropriate may be worth considering once an autonomous Shetland has full democratic control over all of it.
Until then councillors will be well-advised to “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” – especially ones by the name of Alexander!
John Tulloch
Lyndon
Arrochar
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