It’s good news that more ambulances will be going to Burnley General.

Should have happened ages ago but let’s not carp.

It is, as my friend Peter Pike says, a welcome step in the right direction.

The news comes on the day Andrew Lansley abolishes the 19 minute target for ambulances responding to Category B emergencies.

Some say lives will be put at risk.

The official line is designed to reassure. Patients are to be at the heart of A&E and emergency care.

The next step is to reinstate Accident and Emergency at Burnley General.

The Health Minister, Simon Burns, told Pendle’s Andrew Stephenson in September last year that a review “standardising the terms for emergency care” would be published in December 2010 alongside the NHS Operating Framework for 2011-12. (see below)

We are still waiting.

Switching parties

If there is one thing that seriously upsets me it is the sight of candidates dumping on their friends and colleagues by switching political parties.

It happens all the time.

Here in Ontario, Mustafa Rizvi, an NDP candidate in Mississauga-Erindale (near Toronto) decides at the eleventh hour, and with the federal election campaign already under way, that he is really a Conservative and he wants to back Stephen Harper.

How do these people sleep at night?

The NDP is generally seen on the left of the spectrum with strong support amongst organised labour. Harper lies on the outer edge of Canadian Conservatism.

It reminds me of the defection of Sajjad Karim who, a few years ago, abandoned the Lib Dems and scurried off to join the Conservatives when he thought he might lose his seat in the European Parliament.

For the first and only time in my life I felt a tad sorry for the old Liberal warhorse, Tony Greaves, who saw himself as a friend and mentor of “Saj”.

Harper on the campaign trail

In a move that has outraged journalists - who pay over $10,000 to travel on the Prime Minister’s plane – Harper, a control freak, is only taking five questions a day from them.

The Toronto Star reports:

As Harper visited a near-empty Halifax tavern on Thursday, media was kept behind strategically placed bar stools. Six days into the campaign, Harper still has not greeted journalists travelling on his party’s plane. Doesn’t sound like they will be sharing a pint or two anytime soon.

Attachments:

A & E001.pdf

[Standardising terms for emergency care. Letter to Andrew Stephenson]

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