Share
The Department of Health today graciously reminded us of a classic Microsoft Word trick that should never be forgotten.
Whoever did the final editing of health secretary Andy Burnham’s statement to the Commons on swine flu failed to turn off the “track changes” function.
So when an HSJ colleague opened the document and flicked change tracking back on she was met not only with evidence of lax writing (“set in motions plans to develop a vaccine” becomes “start to…”) but something potentially more interesting.
Removed from the end of the health secretary’s speech was the statement: “I’d particularly warn people against deliberately exposing children to the virus at so-called Swine Flu parties.”
In recent days the British Medical Association and chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson have condemned the events, where parents gather their children in the hope they will pick up a mild bout, and immunity. As far as I can see ministers have so far remained silent on the topic.
There is every reason to believe the omission was to prevent the Mr Burnham taking up too much of MPs’ time unnecessarily.
Perhaps his office or the DH, after reminding staff to watch their change tracking, could confirm their reasoning?
Related Files
SoS Oral Statement 2 July 09.doc
Word, size 0.13 Mb
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment.
Readers' comments (1)
Anonymous | 2-Jul-2009 7:46 pm
I love change trackers. Some time ago I was passed a hard copy from a friend who works in Yorkshire. NHS Yorkshire and the Humber widely circulated a document, which was something about the future of communications. This had been followed shortly after by a frantic (and futile) 'recall' attempt. This, of course, only served to alert my contact to the fact that there might for once be something worth reading. Sure enough, the document contained all the comments prior to final edit, including one which said, and I quote: "This sounds like so much communications w***". (Only it wasn't asterisks, but it had four letters and rhymed with tank.) And you know what - it really did. The whole paper did.
Perhaps HSJ could assemble a database of original, complete-with-annotation documents? You could even start a league table (remembering to include quality measures, of course). And penalise SHAs which exceed their targets.
Unsuitable or offensive?