by BILL HEANEY

When are our local politicians going to cop on and shout STOP to their failed project to reorganise the Council Home Care Service?

The whole West Dunbartonshire Community knows about and is talking about the abject failure the reorganisation of this valued service has been during the few months it has been in place.

But all that waffling from lame duck Council leader, Labour’s Martin Rooney, and his fellow elected members on all sides in the chamber, has done nothing to rectify matters either for those in receipt of the service or those on the chalk face providing it for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

Our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, left, has come out this week stating that home carers, who are threatening to withdraw their labour if something positive doesn’t happen soon – and is seen to be happening.

That would be a tragedy for the elderly and vulnerable who receive the Home Care service.

So, why don’t West Dunbartonshire Council and its Health and Social Care Partnership get on with it and pull the plug on it right now?

They’re an arrogant bunch of amateurs (they get paid, amateurs don’t) who consider they know best about every issue that comes before them in Church Street.

I say arrogant because one of them shaped up to punch me for writing that they should scrap their plan to close Balloch Library.

They’re intolerant of journalists like me who attempt to cut through their barrier of secrecy to reach the actuality of what they have done and what they plan to do in regard to our woefully underfunded and managed public services.

I was banned from asking their highly paid spin doctors questions about important council matters and told to join the queue on the telephone or submit a Freedom of Information request to ask for the sound to be adjusted so that the press and public could hear what was being said in the council chamber.

Now that is what I would call bullying and discrimination, ageism even, directed at an old reporter going into his 80s.

But never mind me. Turn your attention to the carers and the cared for and all the others in this community who are troubled by their decisions and disadvantaged by their indolence and incompetence.

Our councillors only have to look at their own website, where they take hundreds of complaints each week, and officials are paid more than £100,000 a year for taking complaints about bin collections and neglected streets, pavements and open spaces becoming ever more unsightly.

They would have you believe that it’s me who is out of order here; that I am the one who is being unreasonable,  but really they are the ones who should maybe have a word with the men and women in the white coats.

The following story appeared in The Scottish Daily Express today:

Damning report shows health and social care system under the SNP is ‘failing patients’

More than a decade after the Nats integrated health and social care in Scotland, the country’s top psychiatrists say the system simply isn’t working

The system is “failing patients” accessing mental health services, a report from the professional body for psychiatry has said.

The college is calling for a Scottish Parliament inquiry to examine the impact of its integrated health and social care system. Dr Pavan Srireddy, vice-chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, said: “The current structure is failing patients.

“Mental health services support some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland, yet responsibility for these services is often spread across multiple organisations, with no clear line of accountability when problems arise.

“Psychiatrists bring a unique understanding of patient need, clinical risk and service demand. Their expertise must be embedded in decision-making alongside policy and finance leaders to ensure that resources are directed where they can have the greatest impact on patient care.”