---
title: "Health minister blames media for neurology recruitment woes"
url: https://www.nsfw.info/minister-blames-media-neurology-recruitment/
published: 2026-11-11T10:00:46+00:00
modified: 2026-11-11T10:00:46+00:00
author: "Chief Editor"
categories: ["Government"]
image: https://www.nsfw.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/minister-blames-media-neurology-recruitment-1024x572.webp
summary: "Health Minister Senator Tom Binet told the States Assembly that media coverage of Jersey's Neurology Department has made recruiting consultants harder, citing R"
publisher: NSFW (https://www.nsfw.info)
---

# Health minister blames media for neurology recruitment woes

**In brief:** Health Minister Senator Tom Binet has told the States Assembly that media reporting on problems in the Neurology Department has made consultant recruitment harder. He cited feedback from the Royal College of Physicians to support the claim.

## Minister Points the Finger at the Press

During question time in the States Assembly, Health Minister Senator Tom Binet raised an eyebrow or two by suggesting that media coverage of difficulties in Jersey’s Neurology Department has compounded the challenge of recruiting new consultants. According to the Jersey Evening Post, the Minister referred specifically to feedback from the Royal College of Physicians, which he said highlighted the “adverse effect” of that coverage on recruitment efforts.

It is not an uncommon move for those in authority to suggest that shining a light on a problem is itself part of the problem. Whether the Royal College’s feedback was offered as a formal assessment or as informal commentary, the Jersey Evening Post’s report does not make clear.

## Neurology Under the Spotlight

The Neurology Department at Jersey’s hospital has evidently been experiencing difficulties significant enough to attract sustained media attention. The precise nature of those challenges is not detailed in the available reporting, but the fact that the Health Minister felt compelled to address the matter on the floor of the States Assembly suggests the situation has been a source of ongoing concern, both clinically and politically.

Recruiting specialist consultants to a small island jurisdiction is rarely straightforward. Jersey competes with larger NHS trusts and private hospitals that can offer broader caseloads, bigger teams and, in some cases, more competitive packages. Adding reputational headwinds into that mix, if the Royal College’s feedback is to be taken at face value, does not make the task any easier.

## The NSFW Perspective

There is something delightfully circular about a government minister arguing, in a public forum, that public reporting on a public health service is damaging that public health service. If the logic holds, the solution would presumably be for journalists to look the other way whenever something goes wrong, at which point everything would be fine, because nobody would know it wasn’t.

To be fair to Senator Binet, he is not the first health minister anywhere in the world to make this argument, and he may well have a genuine point about the specific dynamics of recruiting to a small island. Specialists do talk to one another, and a department with a difficult reputation, however that reputation was earned, can struggle to attract talent. But the answer to problems in a neurology department is surely to fix the department, not to wish the coverage away. Voters in Jersey, who fund the health service through their taxes, might reasonably feel they are entitled to know when something is not working as it should.

*Source: [Jersey Evening Post](https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/11/11/minister-cites-royal-college-feedback-about-effect-of-media-reporting)*