Cut it back to last Wednesday morning at the full meeting of Salford Council and, for once, Salford City Mayor, Ian Stewart, has dropped his arrogance and party politicking, as he admits that he doesn't have the answers to some fundamental questions on the devolution to Greater Manchester of £6billion health and social care funding.
Tory opposition leader, Karen Garrido, had asked Stewart some questions before the Council endorsed a Memorandum of Understanding, which will lead to the full devolution of the NHS within twelve months.
She had concerns that councils will nick some of the health funding to cover cuts in other areas and concerns that the deal wouldn't be "fiscally neutral" (a political football). Following a chat with a doctor friend, she also asked whether the Healthier Together outcome (reorganisation of hospital care) would affect future funding streams "and a fair share of the £6billion"...
"Everything is up for grabs within the next twelve months...some of these questions have already been asked at leader level...we don't yet have answers to all of them..." Stewart replied.
"Using health funding for other things" he pondered "I'm not in a position to answer this fully in relation to the AGMA level because we've yet to go through the checks and balances, and how to make strategic decisions on all of these issues are yet to be done..."
Fiscally neutral? "I don't have an answer to that..."
Healthier Together? "I can say that Salford punches its weight when it comes to making bids and ensuring that we get our fair share" he responded "It's better for me to leave it at that..."
"It's all up for grabs" he repeated, and a bit later added "...sometimes you will just have to, as a council, trust the City Mayor to act on your behalf and in your interests..."
Hmmmm. A whole array of health campaigners and trade unionists are certainly not trusting the Mayor, or any leader of the other nine local councils in Greater Manchester. They want a full debate and a referendum on the issue which they feel has been imposed from above... `Democracy by consent - not by diktat!' is one of the slogans...
"Are we really expected to take it on trust that George Osborne, Jeremy Hunt, Howard Bernstein and Richard Leese, in their cosy back-room laboratory, have discovered a new wonder-drug prescription for our health and that it absolutely must be immediately injected into us for our own good, without our knowing exactly what it contains, how it's supposed to work, what the side effects are and whether we like it or not?" asks one campaigner "If a real doctor tried this approach they would, rightly, be stopped, struck off and jailed! How can we be sure that Deficit Doctor George's marvellous medicine is panacea not poison?"
Meanwhile, Salford City UNISON recently passed a motion expressing concerns that social care, currently accountable to local councils, could now be commissioned at a Greater Manchester level "with less democratic oversight and greater bureaucracy", adding that "this model contains a number of potentially terrible risks that Greater Manchester politicians appear willing to ignore..." (see previous Salford Star article – click here).
Now a Public Protest has been called for this Sunday 29th March at 10:30am at Piccadilly Gardens. It's backed and supported by Keep Our NHS Public, 999 Call for the NHS, The People's Assembly, Greater Manchester Associations of Trade Union Councils and Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign.
Back at the Salford Council meeting, Salford Mayor Ian Stewart acknowledged that "the speed of this change is something we don't welcome but the change to give decision making to more local levels we all fully accept".
And he listed some more questions without answers, including... "What happens if £6billion costs become £8billion or more...who pays? We don't yet have an answer to that..."
There's so many questions without answers that the Salford Mayor is confident will be `ironed out' over the next twelve months. But this is the NHS they are messing with. And while Stewart talks a lot about the whole `Devo-Manc' deal bringing decision making to local levels, many people are worried that the deal is being imposed from above by local politicians, without consent and without much democracy.
How can Salford people "trust the City Mayor to act on your behalf and in your interests", when local people have already been locked out of the process from the start?
Public Protest
Sunday 29th March 10:30am
Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester
See also previous Salford Star article: GM Devolution Will Destroy NHS - click here
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