Lansley and me…

There’s been quite a lot of Andrew Lansley in the press lately – mostly because he’s been making a terrible mess of NHS “reform”. It seems that no-one else can think of anything good to say about his reforms, especially the Prime Minister whose best riposte so far has been something along the lines of “Errrm, there’s a doctor in Doncaster who likes them…so there.” Enlightening, I’m sure. Now he’s been given the magical vote of confidence from Cameron – like a football manager being “bolstered” by support from the Chairman. Alas the manager that Lansley most closely resembles is Fabio Capello – everyone wonders why he hasn’t gone already, no-one seems to rate him, he’s lived on his past reputation for years and no-one will be bothered when he goes.

But what all of this Lansley coverage has managed to do is dredge up a memory that I had obviously been suppressing in the very darkest recesses of my mind. The memory of my own history with Andrew Lansley MP…

Back in 2006, I was the President of my Student’s Union. As part of a campaign to lobby MPs on issues concerning students, I’d invited all of the local MPs to meet up and talk things through. Lansley, as MP for South Cambridgeshire, was just about on my patch. He agreed to meet. So far so good. Now this meeting took place 6 years ago and I may be looking at it through the opposite of rose-tinted spectacles – as such this is my own highly subjective/biased version of events. But it was only me and Lansley there, and I doubt this was an especially memorable meeting for him either, so it’s likely the only version of events that remains…

One morning he turned up bright and early, turned down my offer of shoddy coffee, squeezed himself into a chair in my office, and asked what students cared about. I took him on a brief tour of student issues – from major issues like fees, to the cost of housing in Cambridge, and even relatively mundane issues like the lack of street lighting in the town.

Immediately his eyes glazed over. I knew he was a long shot, but I expected a better effort than this. I’d heard about politicians. They were supposed to be slick, reassuring, comforting – they’d make you think they agreed with you when they didn’t. I didn’t get that from Lansley. He was bored, and he’d decided I was wrong. On fees, he waved away my concerns. Not interested. However, he had once been a student officer himself.

He then proceeded to tell me exactly what I should be interested in, based on his somewhat outdated experience of student life. Realising this was a waste of my time (nevermind his) I desperately tried to wind up the meeting. But it was too late. So it continued. For over an hour.

You may well wonder what this somewhat obscure anecdote has to do about anything. Well if there’s a point at all, it’s this. I very quickly realised that Andrew Lansley wasn’t a good listener. He patently didn’t give a toss what I thought. He was arrogant, high handed, snooty and not at all reassuring. The way he dealt with me six years ago was a microcosm of the way he has handled health professionals today. I can imagine now the way his eyes glazed over when they told him about their problems with the health service. I can hear the tone of voice he’ll have taken when he explained that he knew best. I can feel the pain of the NHS staff we realised he had never been listening in the first place.

So I apologise to NHS workers, doctors, nurses and most importantly patients. I should have said something. I always knew Lansley would make a mess of a big job – especially one with a prominent “listening exercise” attached. I should have shouted it from the rooftops all those years ago about the worst listener I’ve ever met…