Party leaders’ debates: any chance of a reference to England?

On Monday of this week, I finally received a reply from the BBC Complaints department to an email I sent them just after Christmas referring to my open letter to the broadcasters about the proposed (English) party leaders’ debates at the forthcoming election. One day later and this reply would have been too late. As Ms McAleer (yet another ‘Celtic’ name in the Complaints Department!) wrote: “We appreciate your thoughts on the structure and content of the debates but the details of them – both of the BBC’s UK-wide debate and those in each of the nations – have yet to be agreed.”

On Tuesday, those details were released. So, being pedantic about it, the agreement must have been reached by the time of Ms McAleer’s email, just not released. I note in passing the same familiar BBC / establishment thought structure: impartiality is to be ensured by arranging separate, additional and more locally focused debates in each of “the nations” – meaning Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, of course, not England, which is supposed to be adequately catered for by the “UK-wide debate”.

This completely ignores the main point I made in my open letter, which was that there was only really a need for a separate debate in England – about the parties’ England-specific policies – whereas the interests of Scottish and Welsh voters would be adequately served by genuinely UK-specific debates: those dealing with reserved areas of policy, which are the only ones their MPs can influence on behalf of their constituents. Admittedly, that would mean that the leaders of the SNP and Plaid Cymru would also need to be invited to the show. But as those parties may well hold the balance of power in the next parliament – and as they are entitled to vote on English laws, though choosing not to at present – it would be appropriate for viewers across the UK to find out what their policies actually are.

As it turns out, it appears that the themes chosen for the debates do make something of a distinction between reserved and devolved matters. Quote from the press release:

“The first debate will be screened on ITV1. Its themed section will be on domestic affairs.  This programme will come from the North West of England. It will be moderated by Alastair Stewart.

“The second debate will be screened on Sky News. Its themed section will be on international affairs.  Adam Boulton will be the moderator, and it will come from the South West.

“The final debate will be screened on BBC One. David Dimbleby will be the moderator, and its themed section will be on economic affairs. The programme will be based in the Midlands.”

In other words, the themed bit of the ITV debate will be devoted to devolved matters such as education, health, policing and justice, etc. – but also some reserved issues such as immigration, civil rights and political reform. The Sky and BBC debates will, however, be devoted to exclusively reserved matters. In this way, the BBC and Sky are absolved of the requirement to deal with the issues I raised, at least with respect to the main part of their debates; although some England-specific matters will be discussed in the remainder of those debates.

So the responsibility for ensuring that the great British public is correctly informed about the England-specific ambit of many of the parties’ ‘domestic’ policies falls to ITV, which has hitherto steadfastly ignored any of my correspondence on the subject, in contrast to the BBC and Sky, which have at least replied even if not satisfactorily.

The omens are not good. I note, for instance, that the only mention of ‘England’ in the press release occurs in the passage quoted above referring to the locations from which the debates will be broadcast but not the topics discussed. This is, however, tantamount to an admission that these supposed national-UK debates are in reality English-national debates, even the ones on reserved matters. Otherwise, why would there be any need for separate Scottish and Welsh debates (apart from the addition of the nationalist parties for those countries), given that the only issues Scottish and Welsh voters should be basing their choice of parties on are reserved, UK matters?

But I’ve decided there’s no point pushing this sort of England-focused argument, as the establishment broadcasters just don’t, and won’t, get it. Instead, my email to the ITV spokesperson referred to in the press release – James MacLeod (!!) – tried to pique the Celtic positive-discrimination consciences of the ITV news editors, in the following terms:

Dear Mr MacLeod,

I note from Tuesday’s announcement that ITV will be airing the party leaders’ debate dealing with ‘domestic affairs’. These include devolved matters such as education, the NHS, and policing and justice alongside reserved matters such as immigration and political reform, etc.

I was wondering whether it is ITV’s policy for the debate to ensure that viewers are aware when policy discussions relate to devolved matters and therefore concern England only (plus Wales in the case of justice matters).

I feel sure that ITV would regard it as a matter of ensuring the basic impartiality and accuracy of the broadcast to make viewers across the UK aware of where and how the parties’ domestic policies may actually affect them. This is of particular importance for people watching the broadcast in Scotland and Wales, in two ways:

1. Parties will be canvassing the support of voters in those countries, including through their policies on health, education and other devolved matters. However, MPs elected in Scotland and Wales will not be empowered to implement those policies for their constituents, who need to be aware of this fact: their MPs can implement their parties’ policies in these areas only in England
2. The exclusion from the debates of the leaders of the SNP and Plaid Cymru means that the distinct Scottish and Welsh perspective on these issues cannot be put across to the viewers. However, by making clear that many – perhaps the majority – of the issues discussed do not in fact concern Scottish and Welsh voters, this lessens the charge of political bias that could be made towards ITV by the decision to exclude the SNP and Plaid Cymru. It could be argued they do not need to be present, as their parties have the policy of not voting in Parliament on any of the England-only matters discussed. Any specifically Scottish or Welsh concerns about the implications for people in those countries of government policies and legislation for England could then be expressed in the separate debates to be held in those countries.

   I trust you agree that it is important to ensure that voters are aware which policies discussed in the debate affect them and which do not. This will help ensure that the debate indeed has the positive, democracy-enhancing effect we are all hoping for.

   Yours sincerely,

   David Rickard

Let’s see if the Scottish-sounding Mr MacLeod agrees that the people of Scotland (and, incidentally, those in England and Wales) deserve to be shown the naked English truth that the would-be PMs would rather cover up with their new British Emperor’s clothes.

Patients Association report on mistreatment of vulnerable patients in the NHS: why hide its England-only character?

The Patients Association – a lobby group that looks after NHS patients’ concerns and rights in England and Wales – yesterday published a shocking report containing 16 case studies of the mistreatment and neglect of elderly and vulnerable patients in NHS hospitals.

It probably won’t surprise my readers to learn that all the case studies in question related to English hospitals. However, this fact appeared to elude the media yesterday. At one point, on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, it was stated that the case studies were drawn from “across the UK”, wording that was reiterated on the BBC website. Later in the programme, in the news headlines, they did indicate that all 16 case studies involved the experiences of English patients only, while clarifying that people from throughout the UK had contacted the Patients Association with similar examples of neglect. Another article on the BBC website does make this explicit while failing to make clear that not only the examples of abuses but the whole objective and scope of the report are to highlight instances of malpractice in England, and to call on the Department of Health (England) and the Care Quality Commission (the quango that looks after the quality of health- and social care in England) to take action.

Sky News are no better. The report on their website equally makes no mention of the England-only content and purpose of the Patients Association report. The Sky News web page contains a video in which agony aunt Claire Rayner, the president of the Association, asserts that many of the problems derive from the government’s obsession with targets, which force NHS staff to regard patients as mere units and as boxes to tick off rather than real people needing time, care and attention. Of course, this government-driven target culture, and the innumerable targets themselves, affect the English NHS only. They do things differently in the devolved NHS’s.

(Incidentally, I drew the failure of the Sky News report to mention the England-only nature of the story to the attention of their person in charge of dealing with viewer concerns, with whom I’ve been having an email dialogue following on from an open letter to the BBC that I posted on English Parliament Online and drew to Sky News’ attention. I received an initial response from the Sky News executive in question, in which he maintained that Sky does always take care to indicate when a political story relates to England only. I’ve since drawn to his attention two instances relating to the English NHS – including the present one – where this has manifestly not been the case; but I have yet to hear back from him.)

One of the reasons why the lazy media got it wrong – again – is that the Patients Association report does not make it explicit at any point that its observations and recommendations relate to England only. But they do affect only England: as I said, all the case studies concern events that took place in England; and the report’s call to action is addressed only to the authorities that deal with the English NHS. This absence of explicit references to England is in fact a characteristic of all the Patient Association’s communications and campaigns. Indeed, looking at its website, you’d be hard put to work out that the Association’s active campaigning is limited to England and Wales, and then in the latter country only in instances relating to common English and Welsh law. However, reading between the lines, all of the Association’s campaigns dealing with issues of health-care delivery, and the way in which they’re described on the website (with references to ‘the government’ and the Department of Health (England)), emerge as England-specific: GP services, care of older people, health-care-associated infections, dentistry and mixed-sex wards. I then discovered that there is a separate Scotland Patients Association – not affiliated to the (England and Wales) Patient Association – that deals with the corresponding issues for the Scottish NHS.

Why does the Patients Association (England and Wales) appear to go out of its way to conceal the in fact mostly England-specific nature of its activities? This seems in part to be an issue of funding. The PA reported that, after its report was publicised in the media yesterday, it had been “inundated by hundreds of emails and calls from patients across the country contacting us to offer their support and relate their own experiences of poor care”. This will in effect have served as a massive membership drive, and the Patients Association welcomes members (and corresponding financial contributions) from across the UK. It was therefore important for the Association to emphasise that their report deals with issues of concern to people across the UK, which the rush of offers of support and information on further abuses yesterday confirmed. Also, to be fair, the PA does provide information on how to complain about, and seek legal redress for, poor NHS treatment in each of the UK’s nations. But in terms of campaigning for action and change, the Patients Association’s activities are largely limited to England. The Association is in effect soliciting financial support from Scottish and Northern Irish citizens that would probably be more effectively directed to their own patients’ associations, which can actually do something about issues in those countries.

A similar situation applies to corporate sponsorship. The Patients Association’s list of corporate sponsors contains some impressive names; e.g. AstraZeneca, Denplan, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Napp Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer and Virgin Healthcare. Compare these with the sponsors of the Scottish Association: Arnold Clark, Barrhead Travel, It’s so Easy! Travel Insurance, Lloyds Pharmacy, Mobility Scotland, ScotWest Credit Union, Ross Harper Solicitors and Vision Call – Eye Care Home Services. Hardly as prestigious nor, one suspects, as remunerative! The Patients Association is clearly passing itself off as the ‘British’ association in order to secure the backing of such global blue-chip enterprises. Does it fear that if it more accurately designated itself as the Patients Association for England and Wales, it would lose some of these sponsors and the revenue they bring, and would have to rely on more ‘parochial’ English names?

On one level, I am reluctant to criticise the Association for this, as it is clearly important that it maximises its income in order to act as an effective advocate for English and Welsh NHS patients. However, is this advocacy not itself severely impaired and limited by the Association’s almost total avoidance of references to England, or to England and Wales, in the campaign material it puts out? Referring to issues relating to health-care delivery in England without any reference to England itself, as if they were issues of relevance to the whole of the UK, insulates the Association’s critiques and prevents them from becoming a truly powerful cross-UK analysis involving comparisons between practices, patient satisfaction and funding in each of the UK’s health services. It is as if the Association does not want in any way to connect its criticisms of bad practice in England with the politics of devolution, and of health-care funding and provision in the rest of the UK. But isn’t it vitally important to compare the experience of patients in England with that in Scotland or Wales; and if they’re doing things better in those countries, what can we in England learn from them – and do we need to direct more funding into improving the situation in England, given that per-capita expenditure on health care in England lags that in the other UK nations?

But clearly, the Patients Association has decided to avoid getting enmeshed in such political controversies. It would rather carry on working away in its own little bubble: drawing its concerns to the Department of Health (England) and the (English) Care Quality Commission without embarrassing either of these bodies by pointing out to the public that they’re letting England down compared with the corresponding bodies in the other UK countries that are more focused on the needs of their countrymen and -women. After all, rock the boat too much, and you could put off the corporate sponsors; and go on about England too much, and you could put off the individual members from Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But is it possible for the Patients Association to help bring about real improvements to the care provided to English NHS patients if the Association itself doesn’t care enough about England to mention her by name?