Children to lose hot meals at Brent school?

Message from GMB union posted today

No more hot meals?

 GMB Union is fighting to save the jobs of seven catering staff at Our Lady of Grace RC Junior School Dollis Hill Lane. Jobs are under threat as a result of the school’s decision to move from a full school meals service to a sandwiches only service which will be available only to pupils entitled to free school meals. The school will provide nothing at all for other pupils.

Mary Turner, GMB Branch Secretary and National President said “The decision by the Head Teacher and the Governors of the school is unacceptable on every level".

School staff were only made aware a few days before the end of the school term for the summer holidays. The employer catering contractor, ISS Catering, is seeing if it can relocate the staff to other schools in the borough. However, some staff will have to travel long distances from one end of the Brent to the other if they are lucky enough to find an alternative job.

The school has said that no decision had been taken, but a sandwich provider turned up at the school with samples.

The decision to provide a sandwich only service to pupils entitled to free school meals will identify them as children of parents on benefits and these children could face bullying as a result. Under the previous service free school meals pupils were integrated with those who paid for their school meals, so nobody could be singled out.

This will come as a shock to all parents of pupils at the school as the head teacher and governors have failed to consult them or GMB.

GMB is calling on the school to re-think its decision and is asking for the Diocese of Westminster and Brent Council to intervene.”

Broad beans and cabaret this afternoon

I popped down to my allotment yesterday afternoon to see what I could harvest in preparation for cooking a dish for this afternoon's Brent Stop the War/PSC fundraiser. Pretty dispiriting compared with last year when courgettes, french beans etc were available. This year the slugs have had them and much else beside. The combination of early drought and later heavy rain - and lack of warm sunshine - has been devastating.  I have been left with lots of broad beans and a few globe artichokes so I am having to use my imagination and creativity. Plenty of raspberries for summer pudding but sweet corn has barely moved for weeks.

All this has led to many conversations with fellow allottees, not just about climate change but also recognising that if we were small-holders relying on our crops to feed our families this year, they would probably starve. Which of course confronts you with the realities of farming in this country as well as subsistence farming abroad. Salutary

Anyway the sun is out so this afternoon's fund-raiser in a lovely garden in Willesden Green with wonderful food, live music (including a cabaret performance by Green Party member Deborah Fink) and bar should go well.  The garden party starts at 4pm so there is still time to book your ticket.

Cash bar. For more information or to reserve your ticket

ring / text 07951 084 101

Trolley queues at over-stretched Northwick Park A&E

Brent Green Party member, Pete Murry, was recently admitted to Northwick  Park Accident and Emergency ward. In the following Guest Blog Pete reflects on his experience which raises issues of concern for what the future holds if Central Middlesex and several other neighbouring A&Es close.

At about 7.30 pm on Monday 9^th July 2012, I was told by a member of the STARRS District Nurses, (based at Central Middlesex Hospital), that based on my blood tests, STARRS and my GP had decided to have me hospitalised by ambulance. I assume that this was because my mobility was very restricted at the time and that this was the quickest way to get me to hospital.

The ambulance arrived at my house in Dollis Hill at about 8pm.  I asked the ambulance crew if I would be going to Central Middlesex Hospital, as this was where I had gone when I had been hospitalised previously. I was told I could not go there as the Accident and Emergency Department CMH closed at 8.30pm. It was therefore decided to take me to Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow.

The ambulance arrived at Northwick Park Accident and Emergency at about 9pm. I was wheeled into the hospital lying prone on a stretcher accompanied by two ambulance men, the three of us immediately joined a queue of other potential A and E patients on stretchers or wheelchairs, each also accompanied by ambulance crews and sometimes also by friends and/or relatives. As far as I could make out in the queue in front of me consisted of about six or seven patients and others were frequently joining the queue after me.

I don’t recall any of the other patients in the queue shouting out, crying or giving any indication of being in great distress, so I have no idea if there was any procedure for emergencies to go to the front of the queue. If such procedure existed it would have made the wait of the “more routine” patients longer.

The restriction that was causing the queue seemed to be the number of available curtained –off A&E treatment areas available, until one became vacant, patients had to queue. When an earlier a patient was moved out of one of these treatment areas, a patient from the queue could be moved into it and also then be formally transferred from the care of the ambulance crew into that of the A and E Department.

I don’t know, but I assume that as well as arriving at Northwick Park A and E by ambulance, potential patients may have been arriving by other means.

By about 9.55pm, I was at the head of the queue, at this stage the member of A and E personnel in charge of handover ‘re-designated’ two Gynaecology rooms as being empty spaces available for A and E admissions.  I was wheeled into one of these rooms by about 9.58pm.

The ambulance crew who had had charge of me until then explained that if a patient was logged as waiting for one hour, this became logged as an “incident”, which apparently meant extra paperwork for both the ambulance crew and the A and E staff.

Within about 15 minutes I was moved from the Gynaecology room to one of the curtained –off A and ;E treatment areas and the use of the Gynaecology rooms seems to have been a temporary ad-hoc measure to deal with the queues of ambulance patients, but it was taking place at 9pm on a Monday night when there were no adverse conditions or unusual events adding to the number of potential A and E admissions.

After my wait in the queue, I was not fully tested and assessed in A and E and transferred to a ward until about 2am, but I think I was dealt with as promptly as possible by the A nd E staff. My concern is how much of the initial wait before I was assessed by Aand E was due to Northwick Park A and E having to deal with extra cases such as mine who might otherwise have gone to Central Middlesex Hospital.

 

It seems that the run down of Accident and Emergency  facilities at CMH, (let alone their total closure), may displace demand onto other facilities which may not have the capacity to deal with them promptly. Further more the reduction or closure of CMH Accident and Emergency  a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ in regard to ambulance admissions, because ambulance patients have to go where they are taken, which may not necessarily be the nearest or best source of treatment.

If an ambulance can’t take a patient to a closed facility does this show a lack of demand for the facility that has been closed?

Wembley Olympics - summer jams ahead?

With Lorraine King at the Kilburn Times managing to get Transport for London to admit that they have rephased traffic lights ahead of the Olympics LINK, resulting in tailbacks; road closures on Wednesday for the Torch procession, and Olympic lanes around venues, advice to residents not to use Wembley Park station, we can expect some confusion in the weeks ahead. 

The video below attempts to explain the restrictions.  It has collected a number of critical comments, including some suggesting that the arrangements are really for corporate sponsors, rather than athletes and officials as the video claims.