In praise of excellence
In a week when lockdowns went local, Burnham went ballistic and Euro-negotiations went south, your health results went on sale to the lowest bidder, in this case £0, with the NHS committing to provide your personal data to the police – and others.
Confusion grew as Liverpool and next door Lancashire were moved into Tier 3 Lockdown and it was discovered that Pat’s Truck stop on the Lancashire side of the main road had different rules from Anders Drive just 50 yards away on the Liverpool side.
Meanwhile Manchester’s desire to protect its less well off residents is fast becoming a partisan battle where rhetoric is driving out reason.
And as for Boris Johnson’s and Michael Gove’s ‘oven-ready deal’ to ‘take back control’ and ‘get Brexit done’ it’s looking like it’s been well and truly ‘done’.
Meanwhile at a personal level it was a week where, despite more depressing news on Covid, Brexit and the UK Government, there was excellence out there if you’d the good fortune to come across it.
Excellence in Healthcare
With three separate visits to Royal Berks Hospital cancelled during lockdown, our household understands Covid’s impact onthe nation’s general health, so a visit to the doctor’s for a flu jab wasn’t perhaps viewed with quite the same engagement as was the case last year.
Meeting three members of staff (our appointments, Covid symptoms and names respectively) on our way to the waiting area, the annunciator screen called us into the treatment room where staff gave and recorded the vaccinations before finally another person showed us to a different set of stairs for the way back down to the library car park.
We were in and out in under 10 minutes.
Organised locally, communicated locally, delivered locally and excellent in every way.
Huge respect to Woodley Centre Surgery.
Excellence in Art
With lockdown putting everything on hold earlier, the 2020 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy was well on the way to becoming the first absence in 250-plus years.
But that changed in early July when galleries were allowed to open again, and it was renamed as the Winter Exhibition, opening on October 6 and running to January 3.
Getting there became much less stressful when we discovered an underground car park less than 100 yards away and while that wasn’t something we’d done before, travelling without being hemmed in on bus and underground was a welcome relief.
Exhibits at the show were much easier to view than in previous years, simply because of the reduced number of visitors and with just a couple of exceptions, everyone was very considerate in maintaining social distancing.
As for the works themselves, they ranged from the totally awesome to the completely awful while the prices ranged from modest to “how much?”
Being able to get out and go somewhere, whether or not we liked the art, wasn’t just a relief it was excellent. Thank you to the RA.
Excellence in Council Meetings
Recent research into what councils in our area are doing to bring democratic debate and representation back into the public domain,the comparisons show some interesting differences.
West Berkshire District’s September Council meeting had a published agenda and a live video stream.
They use Zoom as the technology for the meeting and you could see and hear 25 Councillors / staff throughout the meeting – all with real backgrounds with good quality sound and video.
The meeting was structured to put debates first and it was notable that the first debate covered the Council’s response to the Government’s white paper consultation “Planning for the Future”.
By contrast, Wokingham’s council meetings do have ‘live’ public questions in the meeting (rather than written answers) and WBC’s agenda has a direct link to the video stream (rather than having to log into the West Berks’ Youtube channel then hunt for the correct video stream).
A simple contrast for now, but both Councils demonstrated individual areas of excellence.
The last word
After all that’s gone on in 2020 with individuals (e.g. Cummings I – eyesight and II – council tax, ‘Honest Bob’ Jenrick, Hancock, Gove and Ferrier) the Government machine has lost credibility and with it, the moral high ground too.
If the nation’s to overcome Coronavirus, then it’s Local Authorities more than ever who are setting the example.
Excellence begins here.
