Thursday, 6 September 2007

Today was devoted to AGM preparations: correcting papers, final planning, fretting about numbers, etc.

Amidst all this, I was very pleased to note that Maria's work is paying dividends: the local free paper this week has devoted a full page to volunteering. Six months ago it would have been just a few square inches, but Maria has won them over. Excellent stuff.

In the evening, I travelled to Potters Bar to chair a public meeting on the future of NHS hospital services in Hertfordshire and North London. It was very interesting. There were two very good presentations and then a very good discussion. Several people attending seemed determined to dig their heels in and defend the current hospital arrangements: exactly the same hospitals with the same services and the same beds. This “radical conservatism” is a curious phenomenon: if things remain the same for long enough they become part of Britain’s unwritten constitution, part of our birthright for which people will go to the barricades - metaphorically, at least: this is Britain, after all. But of course things move on. What did people in the 1960s and before know about today’s health needs?