Owl only had time to make quick notes on what Swire said about the NHS in Devon in the Parliamentary debate this afternoon. It will appear on BBC iplayer later so you can see for yourself.
Martyn Oates, Spotlight reporter, gave an overview of the afternoon with a few short clips of the debating chamber.
North Devon MPs said there was a crisis, especially in their area, there was not enough funding. Tory MP Cox said it funding was inadequate.
The ?Minister of State (Dunne) admitted it was a “challenging situation”.
Swire began by saying he thought the Minister was in a difficult situation as the plan is out for consultation [so why organise the debate if the Minister can’t say anything!] but it was good to see the Devon MPs there.
He said “we are where we are” [duh!] and “we have to make do” and it is a “process of change”, continuing with “we need a genuinely 21st century NHS”.
He toed the party line that the NHS had already been given an extra £8 billion for the year and then an extra £2 billion extra and Mrs May has said there is no more money.
Martyn Oates asked him for a comment on what Neil Parish MP had said [a flattering direct quote from Owl earlier this week on this blog] who said they should not be pitting themselves against each other hospital by hospital but fighting for them all.
Swire said that it should not become a “Dutch auction”. That was a bit difficult to understand for Owl, as a Dutch auction is one where the price (in this case number of hospitals) goes down and down till a buyer is found (or in this a minimum number is reached?) for what remains of them. As Swire IS championing keeping only Sidmouth hospital beds open, not keeping all Devon’s beds open, he is actually guilty of making it into what he says it should not be – some sort of auction – Dutch or Double-Dutch, who knows?
But Swire is an ex-auctioneer, so maybe he can explain that to us!
He then made what Owl considered a very snide remark about Parish being OK as, whatever happened, the 24 bed Tiverton hospital in his constituency would remain whilst saying NOTHING about the fact that Parish’s constituency is definitely losing beds at Honiton and could lose those at Seaton leaving his part of East Devon with no beds at all – Axminster already having list theirs).
He said there is a role for ” much-loved” hospitals but what that role is remains to be seen [double duh!].
He then finished with what he keeps repeating and which we must challenge: he said it is NOT true that a hospital without beds us not a hospital.
EAST DEVON: we MUST get this constituency out of this man’s hands.
East Devon Watch 
Yet more meaningless, and valueless, claptrap. I’m almost sure a Chimpanzee with a blue tie would be more use.
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Your “only quick notes” are a very good summary of what useless Swire said. He did índeed repeat the line about a no-bed hospital is still a hospital. Most people would call it a clinic!
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There are several scenes in Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister where Hacker trots out a long sequence of cliché phrases as part of his speeches – Our Hugo has obviously been to the Hacker school of public speaking.
I do recommend Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister as required reading for those struggling to understand the underlying machinations of either central or local government that result in what we see and hear (or don’t see and don’t hear) and in the way public debate and / or consultations are undertake (or at least paid lip-service to).
Certainly when I recently read the books, I was constantly reminded of recent similar behaviour of either the Conservative government or the Conservative leadership at EDDC as well as the behaviours of our local civil servants (i.e. senior officers at EDDC – though Mark Williams doesn’t have even 1% of the suaveness of Sir Humphrey).
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