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Petitions are important

1/ 2/2006

SIZE does matter when it comes to petitions to show the strength of public feeling.

That is the view of Heywood councillor Colin Lambert in response to a row that blew up in Rochdale after an NHS official told petitioners their signatures were 'not worth the paper they are written on'.

Celia Gaze, director of the Healthy Futures review, later withdrew her remark and stressed she had been trying to emphasise how people who signed petitions needed to fill in a public consultation form because they were the views which would be analysed en masse before the final decisions on hospitals and community health services are taken.

Councillor Lambert said: "People can give their individual views on a consultation form, but a petition shows immediately just how big the strength of feeling is against changes.

"Last year's massive protest petition against plans to close Fairfield's special care baby unit and other maternity services made the Strategic Health Authority put the whole thing on hold."

Paul Mainwaring, chairman of the Patients' Council, said: "I think there was probably a misunderstanding. She was trying to tell people how important it is to fill in the official consultation form.

"But there is nothing wrong with people signing a petition as well."