Re: David Oliver: Is abuse towards doctors in government roles unfair?
Dear Editor,
While I sympathise with Professor David Oliver’s comments concerning the roles of the doctors and scientists advising government during the coronavirus crisis, he fails to grasp, until the very end of his piece, what is happening and thus he does not discuss the failing which is leading to his potential endpoint.
He says in his last sentence:
What seriously concerns me is ministers repeatedly saying that they’re “following the scientific advice.” I do hope that they won’t seek to dump blame on appointees who are not electorally accountable.
David Oliver is evidently concerned that the scientists and doctors are now “between a rock and a hard place”. I would suggest that they suffer from a collective failure to comprehend the cumulative effect of what has been happening.
Undisclosed advice in the early days of this crisis was a concern but was accepted in the urgency of the situation and its “unprecedented” nature (the parentheses reflect the over-use of the word). Assurances that government was being open were not challenged. As failure added to failure over PPE there was a distinct shift. Failings which went back years came to light. At times the scientists appeared to be going beyond the advisory role into making excuses for decisions which did not necessarily have a scientific or medical context.
Once on that slippery slope there is no clawing back. Take Professor Stephen Powis, Medical Director of NHS England, when responding to a question from Channel 4 about the testing of date-expired PPE at the daily No10 Briefing on 7th March. In a 40 second waffled response (there were 18 er/erms) he did not even address the question. As the question was about Public Health England practice and policy and he is not a PHE director, he probably did not know the answer. He did not say so. Was he infected by the political belief that it is a failure to admit to not knowing? It was a policy question (failing to release information) so he could have passed it to the politician leading the Briefing. He did not. From a politician’s viewpoint he had absolved them from any responsibility for the question and as far as I was concerned his personal credibility collapsed.
The public presentation of the government’s approach to the crisis has become a shambles compounded by the lack of clarity of the roles of the scientists. The fact that Professor Chris Whitty (CMO) and Sir Patrick Vallance (CSA) now appear infrequently suggests they are happy to distance themselves as far as they can from this shambles. Their deputies have to be spokespeople for many branches of science and seem to share it around quite liberally. It took a superb interview between Andrew Marr and Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter on Sunday 10th March to describe what seems to be happening.
“… this is not a trustworthy presentation of statistics and its such a missed opportunity. The public … are hungry for details and facts … yet they get fed this what I call number theatre which seems to be co-ordinated by a Number 10 communications team rather than genuinely trying to inform people about what’s going on.”
The scientists are losing our respect because of their political enslavement. It is time to separate, let the politicians do the politics and make a mess of it if they must. It is the job of scientists to advise, not to try to rescue them. If they cannot spot the difference they will end up as the ones to blame, as Professor Oliver fears. They must talk about the science separately, in a less charged non-political environment and with complete transparency.
For information:
Roger Wilson is a cancer patient and advocate. In his professional life he was a journalist and TV producer. He is a member of the NCRI Consumer Forum and Honorary President of Sarcoma Patients Euronet. He chairs the Patient Panel of the European Organisation for the Research & Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). He was awarded the CBE in 2011 for services to healthcare.
Competing interests:
No competing interests
11 May 2020
Roger L Wilson
Retired journalist. Cancer Patient (see note below).
Rapid Response:
Re: David Oliver: Is abuse towards doctors in government roles unfair?
Dear Editor,
While I sympathise with Professor David Oliver’s comments concerning the roles of the doctors and scientists advising government during the coronavirus crisis, he fails to grasp, until the very end of his piece, what is happening and thus he does not discuss the failing which is leading to his potential endpoint.
He says in his last sentence:
What seriously concerns me is ministers repeatedly saying that they’re “following the scientific advice.” I do hope that they won’t seek to dump blame on appointees who are not electorally accountable.
David Oliver is evidently concerned that the scientists and doctors are now “between a rock and a hard place”. I would suggest that they suffer from a collective failure to comprehend the cumulative effect of what has been happening.
Undisclosed advice in the early days of this crisis was a concern but was accepted in the urgency of the situation and its “unprecedented” nature (the parentheses reflect the over-use of the word). Assurances that government was being open were not challenged. As failure added to failure over PPE there was a distinct shift. Failings which went back years came to light. At times the scientists appeared to be going beyond the advisory role into making excuses for decisions which did not necessarily have a scientific or medical context.
Once on that slippery slope there is no clawing back. Take Professor Stephen Powis, Medical Director of NHS England, when responding to a question from Channel 4 about the testing of date-expired PPE at the daily No10 Briefing on 7th March. In a 40 second waffled response (there were 18 er/erms) he did not even address the question. As the question was about Public Health England practice and policy and he is not a PHE director, he probably did not know the answer. He did not say so. Was he infected by the political belief that it is a failure to admit to not knowing? It was a policy question (failing to release information) so he could have passed it to the politician leading the Briefing. He did not. From a politician’s viewpoint he had absolved them from any responsibility for the question and as far as I was concerned his personal credibility collapsed.
The public presentation of the government’s approach to the crisis has become a shambles compounded by the lack of clarity of the roles of the scientists. The fact that Professor Chris Whitty (CMO) and Sir Patrick Vallance (CSA) now appear infrequently suggests they are happy to distance themselves as far as they can from this shambles. Their deputies have to be spokespeople for many branches of science and seem to share it around quite liberally. It took a superb interview between Andrew Marr and Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter on Sunday 10th March to describe what seems to be happening.
“… this is not a trustworthy presentation of statistics and its such a missed opportunity. The public … are hungry for details and facts … yet they get fed this what I call number theatre which seems to be co-ordinated by a Number 10 communications team rather than genuinely trying to inform people about what’s going on.”
The scientists are losing our respect because of their political enslavement. It is time to separate, let the politicians do the politics and make a mess of it if they must. It is the job of scientists to advise, not to try to rescue them. If they cannot spot the difference they will end up as the ones to blame, as Professor Oliver fears. They must talk about the science separately, in a less charged non-political environment and with complete transparency.
For information:
Roger Wilson is a cancer patient and advocate. In his professional life he was a journalist and TV producer. He is a member of the NCRI Consumer Forum and Honorary President of Sarcoma Patients Euronet. He chairs the Patient Panel of the European Organisation for the Research & Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). He was awarded the CBE in 2011 for services to healthcare.
Competing interests: No competing interests