From Cllr Jonathan Young, Niton and Whitwell Parish Council, Niton:
Good news about anything to do with the NHS has been in short supply recently, but it is cheering to learn the Island’s Clinical Commissioning Group is having second thoughts about the status of our rural GP surgeries (CP, 31-03-17).
Huge numbers of comments, we are told, followed the proposal to downgrade services in Niton (pictured) and Godshill, among other villages, posing a threat to the surgeries’ long-term future.
Our parish council is proud to have played a leading role in the campaign to make the CCG listen; and I am also sure a public meeting organised by our Chale colleagues served as an education to anyone who thought this part of the Island would roll over and accept such nonsense.
The irony of our deteriorating bus services being used as one of NHS England’s reasons for softening their approach will not be lost on local people — we need decent public transport as well as decent health services.
Campaigns on both fronts will continue, and we will examine the CCG’s revised proposals, when they are published, with critical interest.
There are new faces at the top of the Island’s NHS and they will need to be kept publicly accountable, just as their predecessors were.