Private beds
Sir: I have only just read the article by Dr John Linklater entitled 'Gin trap at the Elephant' in the Spectator ofJuly 27 and would like, at this late stage, to correct some factual inaccuracies.
As the senior administrator in the South Hammersmith Health District I was involved in the pay bed dispute from the moment it was first mooted in May and attended, along with others, the meetings with Mrs Castle on July 5/6 when the matter was finally resolved. Dr Linklater's inaccuracies are so important that I am breaking a self imposed ordinance not to comment publicly on the matter, despite the many hundreds of reports and comments that have appeared, in order to correct the ones I can personally vouch.
Firstly the local Area Health Authority did not ever "lay down" that private patients should be scattered throughout the hospital. This was a possible corn promise move that was mooted at Charing Cross Hospital, proved acceptable to the local union but unacceptable to the consultants and was then abandoned. To this extent it was one of three or four proposals that were discussed at negotiating sessions locally before we finally had to urge upon the .Secretary of State for Social Services • :-.the national resolution of what had, by that time, become a national issue.
Secondly, therefore, "this inflammatory edict" as Dr Linklater calls it could not, and did not, follow "personal consultation" with Mrs Castle. Mrs Castle merely remarked subsequently in a letter to the Secretary of the BMA, that this proposal appeared to be a "practicable solution," and she too was erroneously under the impression that the Area Authority had proposed it when in fact they had not.
Thirdly, Mrs Castle's press statement in the early hours of July 6 did not say anything about the closure of the Charing Cross Hospital private wards, as reference to the statement would show. The statement was agreed by the representatives of Charing Cross Hospital and the Chairman of the Area Health Authority who, along with local union representatives, were with Mrs Castle immediately before she met the press to announce the agreement which we had all reached. In a press statemencissued later that day I also indicated that the private wards were still in existence and amplified the practical effects of the agreement reached at the Elephant and Castle, which did not include closure.
Nigel Weaver District Administrator, Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow Area Health Authority (Teaching), South Hammersmith District, Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Road, London W6
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