Lib Dem calls for Standards investigation into councillor’s comments
A leading Liberal Democrat county councillor has called on Surrey County Council's Standards Committee to investigate an email sent by Cllr John Butcher, a member of the ruling Conservative group, calling for health policies which would "encourage the self-inflicted to move away from Surrey to areas where there is no differentiation between patients on the grounds of their contribution towards their condition".
In her letter to the Chairman of Surrey's Standards Committee Fiona White, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats at County Hall and Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Adult Social Care, says: "I would ask your Committee to investigate whether the email would have the effect of bringing Surrey County Council into disrepute and whether it contravenes the equality and diversity policies of the Council which all councillors are required to observe."
Commenting on the email from Cllr Butcher, Fiona White said: "To suggest that people should be 'encouraged to move out of Surrey' because of 'self-inflicted morbidity (mainly - smoking, alcohol, narcotics, obesity) and injury (dangerous activities)' and that 'Over time, that would result in the healthcare for the 'other' patients in Surrey being significantly better than the average national level for all patients, as the resources deployed to the self-inflicted would be very much reduced. This factor would attract more 'other' patients to come to live in Surrey - and that would push up house prices here' will be a shocking statement for many Surrey residents to see coming from a member of Surrey County Council's Health Scrutiny Committee.
"I have referred the issue to Surrey's Standards Committee so that a proper investigation take place as to whether Cllr Butcher has broken the County Council's Code of Conduct for members."
NOTES:
1) Text of County Councillor Fiona White's letter to the Chairman of Surrey County Council Standards Committee:
Mr Simon Edge
Chairman - Standards Committee
Surrey County Council
County Hall
Penrhyn Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey KT1 2DN
7th June 2012
Dear Mr Edge
I wish to formally raise the issue of an email written by Cllr John Butcher, a member of Surrey County Council's Health Scrutiny Committee, with the Standards Committee.
I have seen a copy of the email which he sent to a council officer and members of the Committee. He states clearly that people should take care of themselves and not do things which are harmful. That is a view he is entitled to take. However, he then goes on to state that there should be penalties for those who do not look after themselves or indulge in dangerous activities and that those penalties should be such as to "encourage the self-inflicted to move away from Surrey to areas where there is no differentiation between patients on the grounds of their contribution towards their condition". He goes on to say that "it would deter the self-inflicted from coming to live in Surrey". His conclusion is that this would lead to better health care for those who remain in Surrey which would push house prices up here. For ease of reference, I attach a copy of the full email.
At first glance, it would seem as though this is a spoof email but it was sent to an employee of the County Council and Cllr Butcher has defended it in the press.
I would ask your Committee to investigate whether the email would have the effect of bringing Surrey County Council into disrepute and whether it contravenes the equality and diversity policies of the Council which all councillors are required to observe.
This was not a message in Cllr Butcher's private capacity to a friend, acquaintance or a colleague. It was an email sent in his capacity as a county councillor to an officer of the Council and members of the Health Scrutiny Committee.
I look forward to receiving your confirmation that the Standards Committee of the Council will investigate Cllr Butcher's behaviour in this matter.
Yours sincerely
Fiona White
County Councillor - Guildford West
Copy to: Ann Charlton, Head of Legal & Democratic Services, Surrey County Council
2) Original email from Cllr Butcher:
From: John Butcher [jvcbutcher@btinternet.com]
Sent: 22 May 2012 09:53
To: XXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Briefings and additional papers HOSC 24 May
Dear xxxx
1 Please pass on my apology for absence from the Surrey HOSC meeting on 24 May 2012, but I have a hospital appointment that day, and it has already been postponed once.
2 Because of the economic catastrophe facing the capitalist world, the NHS, that is a Marxist organisation, is bound to fail - like Greece. The government's efforts to 'improve' it are merely a postponement of that failure, which will arise from ever-increasing demand for, and the unit costs of, healthcare and the ever-decreasing national wealth available to afford those demands and costs, through taxation or otherwise. Politicians who support the diversion of increasingly scarce fiscal resources into propping up the NHS, without taking measures to curb demand, not only accelerate its eventual demise but allow more important demands on the public purse to go unmet, with serious adverse consequences to the people. It will be the people who suffer from the collapse of the NHS - but they will have only themselves to blame - for voting in politicians who promise to improve the NHS regardless of other factors.
3 One way of saving the NHS is to encourage patients to take very much more care of themselves, with penalties on those who won't do that. If the NHS in Surrey were to be run on the basis that patients with self-inflicted morbidity (mainly - smoking, alcohol, narcotics, obesity) and injury (dangerous activities) are, following due warning, placed in a much slower-moving queue for healthcare than 'other' patients, this would encourage the self-inflicted to move away from Surrey, to areas where there is no differentiation between patients on the grounds of their contribution towards their condition. And it would deter the self-inflicted from coming to live in Surrey. Over time, that would result in the healthcare for the 'other' patients in Surrey being significantly better than the average national level for all patients, as the resources deployed to the self-inflicted would be very much reduced. This factor would attract more 'other' patients to come to live in Surrey - and that would push up house prices here - assuming that planning controls remain similar to now.
4 Eventually the self-inflicted patients would end up living in 'equality' areas that are dominated by politicians who pander to their needs, thus driving more 'other' patients out of those areas, as healthcare there will be badly affected by the over-dominance of the self-inflicted. These 'other' patients would move into areas, such as, hopefully, Surrey, where 'other' patients are not nearly so adversely affected. Eventually the country will be sharply divided into two types of area:
4.1 the 'equality' ones, where the self-inflicted unhealthy are treated the same as all patients, and
4.2 the 'others', such as, hopefully, Surrey.
Average life expectancy will be substantially lower (by, say, 20 years) in the 'equality' areas than in the 'others'. This may mean that 'other' patients moving out of 'equality' areas may have to live in a less desirable dwelling, because of house price differentials, but that is a trade-off, that they can choose, with healthcare differentials between the two types of area. Such house price differentials already apply for schooling, with houses on one side of a catchment boundary being worth a lot more than houses on the other side of it. Indeed, the perception that the gap in those prices between those two types of healthcare area will grow substantially will encourage the 'other' patients in those 'equality' areas to move out of them sooner, lest they see their dwelling there becoming worthless.
5 Thus, any political party that seeks to pander to the needs of the self-inflicted unhealthy, and to win their votes, will suffer twofold:
5.1 mortality will ensure that its voters will be much fewer in number than the 'others', and
5.2 by concentrating its voters into particular areas, that party will never be able to win enough seats to dominate Parliament.
Regards
John Butcher