Monthly Archives: September 2016

Despite the NHS appearing to slowly implode across the country - even more so in Devon (see previous blogs) - the PM clearly doesn’t care - except about providing a 7 day NHS!

If you listen to her interview you could be forgiven for thinking that the major bed cuts planned across the country was actually a load of nonsense made up by the journalist.

I am a pretty optimistic person, but at times like this you can’t help but feel some despair for the future of our public services.

The conservative government, I am afraid, appears to want to damage them beyond repair.

https://twitter.com/sun_politics_sw/status/781913371268542465

Dismayed and alarmed by the State of Nature report published last week that I have lodged a motion calling on Devon County Council to review its environment policy.

The countryside and heritage section of the policy has a positive and wide-ranging set of objectives, but it was written in 2014 and needs a review, due to the dramatic decline in species, trees and also the impact of us leaving the European Union.  Here’s the motion…..

Okehampton and Honiton Hospitals are set to lose all in-patient beds in a cost cutting exercise by local health services.

72 beds are to be cut from 143 in all, with four options that will be consulted on, although health bosses have a preferred option of keeping beds at Tiverton, Seaton and Exmouth.

Other hospitals at risk of losing all their inpatient beds are: Sidmouth and Whipton Hospital in Exeter

Health chiefs hope that the bed cuts will save £5-6m a year, with around 20 to 40 per cent of current running costs reinvested in creating health hubs and providing more care in people’s homes.

Devon County Council’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee will write to the chair of the health select committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston, asking for an investigation into funding for Devon.

A planning application for a 12 acre business park in an area of outstanding natural beauty in Sidford has caused huge controversy.

The proposal first emerged when I was a local plan panel member in 2012. It suddenly appeared in the papers for our final meeting in the March. The proposal caused such uproar that it spawned the birth of Save Our Sidmouth, which ploughed much funding into fighting the allocation of this land in EDDC’s Local Plan.

Things looked up for a while after a full council meeting last year saw Stuart Hughes and Graham Troman manage to overturn the decision to allocate this land.  However, the planning inspector had other ideas and late last year, reinserted the contested piece of land back into the Local Plan.

An important motion put before parliament this week on ensuring much more transparency over proposed controversial cuts failed with 195 in favour, verses 280 against.

This is extremely disappointing, given our situation in Devon, which is at the top of the list of being financially challenged, with huge bed cuts planned across acute and community hospitals.

This was only revealed by the BBC in a leaked document last week.

The motion read:  “That this house notes with concern that NHS sustainability and transformation plans are expected to lead to significant cuts to changes to frontline services; believes that the process agreed by the Government in December 2015 lacks transparency and the timeline announced by NHS England is insufficient to finalise such a major restructure of the NHS; further believes that the timeline does not allow for adequate public or parliamentary engagement in the formulation of the plans; and calls on the government to publish the plans and to provide an adequate consultation period for the public and practitioners to respond.”

This is a thoroughly excellent motion in my opinion and cannot surely be disagreed with, except perhaps by a political party who appear to be calling the damaging shots in relation to bringing the NHS to its metaphorical knees.

Our MP, Hugo Swire is no longer a foreign office minister and his twitter feed showed him in Westminster this week, yet he is not listed as voting on the motion.  Is this a mistake?. Mr Swire claims to care about local hospitals. This debate should surely have been a number one priority for him.

Where was he?

http://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-09-14/division/16091440000631/NHSSustainabilityAndTransformationPlans?outputType=Names

Devon MPs have met with ministers about the leaked report concerning the plans to hugely cut hospital beds.

Peter Heaton Jones criticises those who he claims have have made it “party political.”  He then goes on to parrot nonsense conservative spin on NHS funding ... as if the government hasn’t been starving the NHS of funds for all the years they have been in power!

And was our MP present?  If not why, and if so, why haven’t we heard the outcome of the meeting?

http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/mps_hold_crisis_talks_with_health_minister_over_north_devon_district_hospital_cuts_1_4695774

Rural communities hoping for connection to superfast broadband will know by the end of this year whether they are included in phase two of the official rollout.

Really. Really shocking stuff.  My thinking cap is on…

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/nature-wildlife-species-extinct-britain-countryside-state-of-nature-report-2016-rspb-farming-a7256441.html

NHS Property Services dubious avaricious actions threatens yet more health services…..... Below is press release from Di Fuller, Sidmouth Patient and Public Involvement chair

Since NHS Property Services, (NHSPS) refused to sell the Blackmore site to the Sid Valley Practice, doctors have been pressing NHSPS to update Blackmore, following an NHS Care and Quality Commission (CQC) inspection report in June 2015 that the premises ‘is not fit for purpose’.

Since NHSPS took over the building from the Primary Care Trust, the cost to the practice of running the site has escalated to a point where it may no longer be cost effective to work from there even though the doctors want to. This is because of increased profit taken by NHSPS on the Blackmore surgery building.

The name NHS Property Services is misleading as they are a private company set up by Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health, to manage all NHS property.

Hospital bed cuts and NHS Property Services plans are on the agenda for next Monday’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee… See agenda here…

http://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=244&x=1 

If you would like to address the committee on any of these issues you will need to register in advance with Gerry Rufolo - .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

You will receive three minutes of airtime.

I can normally take a reasonable picture but my filming can be a bit erratic.

It was all quite exciting this morning in Ottery as hundreds of residents lined the streets to await a glimpse of the speedy cyclists in the Tour of Britain.

There were zillions of police cars and police motorcyclists who drove past first and by the time the first four zoomed by (I am sure I spotted some sideburns) I managed to film some sky and buildings instead of the riders.

A raft of cuts are planned, including major bed closures across the big four Devon district hospitals, and in community hospitals, a leaked NHS document reveals today.

The BBC has broadcast devastating news that one in six acute hospital beds are proposed to be cut, as well as the loss of almost 200 community hospital beds.

Anyone who is keeping up with the news will realise that a growing and serious crisis is enveloping the NHS.