Is Mr Cameron avoiding his critics? (From The Northern Echo)

Is Mr Cameron avoiding his critics?

5:17pm Sunday 19th February 2012 in Peter Barron By Peter Barron

THE Government is in disarray on the NHS. Andrew Lansley is widely tipped to be replaced as Health Secretary in a forthcoming reshuffle and opposition to proposed radical reforms to the service is mounting.

It has led to David Cameron hastily arranging a Downing Street summit on the reforms tomorrow in an apparently desperate bid to stem the tide of criticism.

But if the Prime Minister wants the summit to have any credibility, how can some of the biggest health organisations, such as the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Royal College of GPs, have been left out of the discussions?

Could Mr Cameron, or those who advise him on such matters, not see how it would look: that he does not want to come face to face with the biggest critics of the proposed reforms?

Last week, the Prime Minister visited Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary - a hospital which treats patients from across the region.

Yet The Northern Echo, which has readers across the North-East, was curiously not invited to attend the visit. A complaint was lodged and we were told it may have been due to a limit on the number of news organisations which could be accommodated.

The fact that we have been consistently critical of the Government's public sector cuts was apparently nothing to do with it.

Whatever the truth - genuine oversight, lack of room, or deliberate snub - Mr Cameron needs to convince as many people as possible about the justification for his NHS reforms.

He needs to be bringing people together to discuss and promote the best way forward for the NHS.

Instead, the headlines are being dominated by the understandable perception that he is snubbing his critics. It is short-sighted and not very clever.