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Ready for OffCon?
• SO there is to be another “consultation” by NHS Camden.
On the basis of recent so-called consultations, the process seems to go like this. 1: Decide what you think, from on high, is right. 2: Articulate those decisions in the form of questions to which it would be a nonsense to answer anything but “yes” or “very important”. 3: Use the result to justify what you have already decided.
One would hope that a consultation actually aims genuinely to bring the public into a decision-making process, considering real questions – such as the issues covered in the New Journal last week (Check-up: GP-led health centre guide). Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen.
Consultations over many issues are used in this shameful way. There would seem to be a need for a new regulatory body, to supervise consultations. (Camden’s Scrutiny Committee appears either not to have the powers, or perhaps just not the balls, to do this adequately.)
On the basis of recent experience in Camden, such a body might aptly be called OffCon.
Tom Osborn
Kentish Town, N7
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