David Cameron has made an embarrassing error by wrongly claiming that maternity services at King’s Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital were under threat in his latest high profile announcement of NHS reforms. The fault was blamed on a typing error, according to this report in the Eastern Daily Press.
A Conservative spokesman claimed that the King’s Lynn hospital had been wrongly included in the latest list of 29 hospitals as having an accident and emergency or maternity services under threat because of a “typo in a gridâ€?. I would feel furious if I was in David Cameron’s shoes.
Only last week, Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb was forced to apologise after admitting his report as health spokesman incorrectly labelled kitchen hygiene standards at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital as among the worst six in the country.
The public needs to feel confident about the accuracy of information being presented by political leaders highlighting their campaigns, this kind of sloppy presentation can only backfire against the party and create the wrong kind of headlines. As a result, the front page splash in today’s EDP states: “Tory Leader in NHS Gaffe” – the whole story is about this error, rather than the wider message.
I certainly would have liked to have seen someone from Conservative Central Office apologise too, because it is local Tory MP Henry Bellingham who is left to pick up the pieces. He says he was not consulted, and neither was the hospital concerned where bosses now have to reassure patients – surely these were both obvious sources for checking the accuracy of any threat of closure.
Let’s hope some important lessons have been learnt from these two examples about the importance of checking and double checking facts with the best sources, though I do sympathise with researchers who are under pressure to present their data quickly.
Update: Could someone please tell the BBC that King’s Lynn is in East Anglia and not the north-west.
And Newsnight tonight will be highlighting claims from other hospitals which have also denied their services are under threat. If true, it is a nightmare scenario:
Politicians love to do battle over the NHS so is David Cameron right about hospital closures or is he wrong? Are a whole load about to close or not? The Conservatives have their list of the 29 at risk and David Cameron has been touring the country to offer them support. BUT today a member of his shadow team apologised to his local hospital saying that it was wrong that it was on the list. Since then many Trusts and hospitals on the list have also denied they are under threat. The truth? We’ll be trying to find out and testing both Labour and the Conservatives’ claims.
Ellee – I think you’ve picked up on something very interesting here. Maybe we can blame easy online research – but the ability to identify sources, verify these and understand exactly what data is, and is not telling us, is a key skill.
As an educator, I find myself writing “source?” and “proof?” on papers all the time. Credibility is underpinned by robust evidence, not sloppy research and unsubstantiated assertations.
I agree with what Heather says: research is often sloppy and I have taught a generation of students who hate finding information anywhere but on the internet and who turn their noses up at the idea of writing a draft. So organisations and politicians need to ensure that they are employing meticulous researchers in the first place – and perhaps employ the odd teacher with an eagle eye for typos! [I can scan a French ? Italian A4 page and mark in a second where the accents are wrong or totally missing!]
… but unfortunately not my own English in blog comments for question marks where they should not be!
As a journalist, I am scrupulous about checking my facts. I never mind people disagreeing with me about the views I express on my blog, but I feel mortified if on an occasion I get my facts wrong, usually through a misunderstanding.
It seems someone from the Shadow team has apologised to the King’s Lynn hospital, it is going to be highlighted on Newsnight tonight:
“Politicians and the NHS
Politicians love to do battle over the NHS so is David Cameron right about hospital closures or is he wrong? Are a whole load about to close or not? The Conservatives have their list of the 29 at risk and David Cameron has been touring the country to offer them support BUT today a member of his shadow team apologised to his local hospital saying that it was wrong that it was on the list. Since then many Trusts and hospitals on the list have also denied they are under threat. The truth? We’ll be trying to find out and testing both Labour and the Conservatives’ claims.”
I’ve just found this BBC onlinke link on the story too, could someone please tell them that King’s Lynn is in East Anglia and not the north-west:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6956719.stm
It’s clumsy not to get facts right, but the message is still there. Anyway, the BBC are notorious for getting their facts wrong.
Slightly tricky one this, as”under threat” is (a) rather a subjective statement and (b) potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy, hence indignant denials.
For the record though, I would have thought that of our regions hospitals the most at threat would be Hinchingbrooke and West Suffolk. Kings Lynn is relatively protected by geography (Who else is going to look after the Duke of Edinburgh if he has a heart attack?)
Yes, this is the sort of thing that makes the electorate suspicious of claims made by politicians of any colour.
Technically, I’m not a journalist, but solely a blogger. But I am in the middle of conducting interviews and I’m constantly returning to my source for follow-up and checking and re-checking. I only think it’s imperative. It’s basic respect and moral code.
I’m actually a standup comedienne in NYC. Feel free to stop by and fact-check, or at least edit my grammar and spelling errors.
Nice coming across your blog!
Lucy, Sources which provide imperative information of this kind should obviosly be double checked. I’m delighted to have a comedienne visit my site and shall reciprocate. But hey, I would never edit your grammar, the beauty of blogging is that it is not essential to write perfect English.
Hi Elle, the thing is the waters have been muddied so much we no longer know what health is and what health care is supposed to deliver.
I think David Cameron should take it back to the drawing board – and introduce an almost counter – conservative policy – the issue is to deliver health & health care to patients who need it. Putting the issue of costs and how to pay for it (putting the cart before the horse) is what has skewered priorities, and muddied the field.
A hospital or PCT should receive funding according to how many patients it treats and cures, not according to how many high cost treatments or operations (the darlings of the BMA) it performs.
Accuracy is important at all times, but more important is what health care is being delivered. That patients still lose teeth in this day and age (because they can’t get dentists to provide 21st century dentistry on the nhs, and instead receive second or third rate dentistry) is at the crux of the matter.
If we can’t get this ‘simple’ thing right, then we are just blowing hot air on more complex issues such as drugs for alzheimer’s or stem cell research.
Some Maternity wards have become a much more complex theatre of operations, technology and medical science than they were ever meant to be. Almost unnatural.
Have I not being saying since Day One that they need to drop Cameron and put in Davis? Gaffe after gaffe after gaffe.
Regrettably, it makes the conservatives look like they’re not ready for government. They’re not. They need to buck up their ideas fast.
This is an example of a desire to get involved in the Punch and Judy politics that David Cameron said he would not partake in.
Cameron has said he wanted a bare knuckle boxing match over the NHS, aside from the offensiveness of such a comment, using an area where people feel vulnerable for the sake of political scoring, those researchers had the main aim of trying to humiliate the government, rather than concern over individual hospitals being their first priority. In short, if someone intends to have a “bare-knuckle boxing match” over the NHS or any other institution where the electorate feel vulnerable, then expect a bloody nose!
Obviously the criteria behind research documents should be fully stated in press releases so there is no doubt about their authenticity, the basis on which these findings are made.Obviously
[…] clique of second-rate part-timers. blogosphere, conservatives September 3, 2007 at 1:40 pm | Trackback| […]
[…] One only needs to look at Tenacious Dave’s recent NHS scandal (or gaffe, depending on which CCHQ researcher you ask) to understand the dynamics of a self-correcting blogosphere up against a self-proselytising clique of second-rate part-timers. […]