A long time ago, I studied a bit of meteorology. My abiding memories are not about occluded fronts and cumulonimbus clouds, but a general wonder at the complexity of the discipline.
Every prevailing weather system is the product of an incredible range of influences from solar cycles and jet streams to ocean currents and the shape of land masses.
There aren’t many things more complicated than a human body, but the weather is probably one of them.
So, to suggest we now understand the weather - for all our sophistication in modelling - is frankly ridiculous. The climate is changing. Human activity probably does have something to do with it. It’s probably worth lowering our carbon emissions, even if in the fullness of time it proves to be less significant than most currently believe. As far as I’m concerned, for the non-expert, that’s about as definitive as you can be.
So, why on earth are doctors’ representatives banging on about it? Doctors from “around the world” have launched the International Health and Climate Council to pressure governments into action over climate change. And The Lancet has backed it up with some articles on the health consequences.
Of course, we should all do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint (and I like to think I do more than most). But, is President Obama’s thinking at the upcoming Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change really going to be influenced by a bunch of doctors and their trade mags offering up sound bites on issues that are far removed from their areas of expertise?
I somehow doubt it. And yet this week they’ve taken the opportunity to pump more hot air into the atmosphere about the health consequences.
It’s funny, but I didn’t hear many of them talking about the real health stories this week at Basildon and Thurrock NHS Trust and Colchester Hospital - not in public anyway.
We’ve got a real crisis on our hands and there’s no nice PR opportunity in it. Standards faltered at Basildon and Colchester, as they did at Mid Staffs, despite a supposedly tight regulatory system. The consequences were severe.
A report by Dr Foster Intelligence rated a dozen hospitals as “significantly underperforming”, despite nine of them being rated good or excellent by official regulator the Care Quality Commission.
Seven hospitals were also found to have considerably higher mortality rates for the past five years.
It raises difficult questions: how do we really tell if a unit is good? Do our current targets subvert clinical priorities? How do we provide a more quality-focused regulatory system that supports learning and development?
These are the issues doctors’ leaders should be debating, not Brazilian rainforests or polar bears. While there are people better qualified for this, few are in a better position to help improve standards in our hospitals.