Ex-health minister: I am cynical about keeping politics and health apart

Michael McGimpsey was speaking after the BBC reported on a scheme in Manchester which has seen 37 bodies including councils and health authorities sign a “memorandum of understanding” about changes to the health service in the region.

Central government is preparing to hand over control of the health budget to the Greater Manchester area in April.

The BBC said among the changes on the table were the closure of some emergency departments.

It quoted the Labour leader of Tameside Council, Kieran Quinn, as saying: “If we didn’t have a consensus about the way forward, then all we’d do is squabble and backbite about the way forward.”

When it was suggested that some kind of arrangement could be reached where there is a political consensus on Northern Ireland, Mr McGimpsey, who was health minister from 2007 to 2011, said: “The basic proposition of ‘Don’t play politics with the health service’, that’s where we need to be.

“But we’ve never managed that before. I’d be sceptical and cynical about our ability to do that now.”

As far as Northern Ireland’s health system goes, he said that “you could consolidate your emergency services over fewer sites”.

It was put to him that every time a hospital closure is mooted in Northern Ireland it causes uproar.

He replied: “It’ll only cause controversy if people want to be controversial. But I think the clinicians have to lead on that. It’s very difficult for anybody to be controversial if the clinicians are saying: This is a safe way forward, what we have [now] is unsafe.”

He also cautioned: “Don’t get too carried away with Manchester.”

He said the Manchester region could rely on the health service in the surrounding area, and that there was a much bigger private health sector in England.

See Morning View.