Angels on pinheads

I came out of the ballot this week for a question to the Prime Minister, so I thought it would be worth asking him about Frenchay Hospital.

Earlier in the Summer, health secretary Alan Johnson had said that where his NHS review implies hospital 'reconfigurations' (ie closures) he will routinely allow an independent review if requested by a local authority health scrutiny committee. Following this announcement, my Lib Dem colleagues on South Glos. health scrutiny initiated precisely such a request. The health secretary has now written back to say we can't have a review because the decision over Frenchay was taken before he made his promise.

I therefore asked the PM today for an independent review. The health secretary leant across to him and hissed that he should decline! The PM said that the medics had looked at the issue of Frenchay and had decided that there didn't need to be a review because it was the right clinical decision. In other words, we don't need a review because we know we are right, and in any case, we've already taken our decision so we won't let it be independently reviewed.

Of course, if they are so confident of the clinical justification for shutting Frenchay, they would have no problem with an independent review - or would they?