RESIDENTS of Swindon and surrounds should now feel safe and satisfied, perhaps.

The Advertiser reported (July 1) that the chairman of the board of directors of Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust had paid tribute to the board, apparently because of the thorough investigation which revealed a series of misdiagnoses by a doctor who was well past retirement age.

Perhaps local residents should not feel so secure. A Government health minister, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has recently spoken about a statutory duty of NHS trust chief executives to ensure that they and the trust boards have responsibility for overall quality of service (House of Lords Hansard, June 22, 2000, columns 421-422).

A strong case can be made that the Trust board has already failed in very basic duties of care as a board let alone an NHS board entrusted to oversee people's lives on many occasions in recent months and years.

Not the least of such failures has been the issue of appointing a clinician well past normal retirement age.

What procedures were followed to guard against error before the appointment was made, to check his work as it proceeded (not after the tragic events), and to respond to the concerns of professional NHS colleagues apparently expressed at the time?

And who in the local NHS made the authorisation request that would ultimately have gone to the then Secretary of State for Health in order to allow the employment of such a retired doctor?

Congratulations after the events are all very well. Rather, they are not. Action must be taken now to remove those responsible before the health and safety of people is further endangered.

This may well mean removing the board, which after all is entirely unaccountable to local people.

It may be an action that will help safeguard the wellbeing of present and future patients.

Local people deserve better than is being done on their behalf.

GERAINT DAY

(one time chairman of Swindon & District Community Health Council)

Southampton Street, Swindon