Good news for play in Chalkhill

So much has been done to improve Chalkhill Estate and its primary school that I thought Chalkhill needed some positive coverage after the sad news reported elsewhere.

Chalkhill Primary is an accredited Healthy School and believes in the importance of play not just for keeping healthy but also for how it contributes to learning.

Children came back after the summer holiday to find a whole new Early Years Playground.  A state of the art new Early Years building at the school will also open this month. The Junior Playground will have a similar make-over later this year and the nearby Chalkhill Park should be finished by November.

Needless to say the children were incredibly excited when they saw their new playground and couldn't wait to try it out.

Adventurous Play  Equipment

Outside Music Workshop

Balcony Imaginative Play Areai

 

Climbing wall in the Junior Playground

Floral tributes to Chalkhill murder victim

Floral tributes to Arron Payne outside Chalkhill Medical Centres

Police Appeal in nearby Wembley  ASDA's window

Chalkhill Estate remains fairly tense and wary beneath the  surface calm following the stabbing and subsequent death of Arron Payne. Floral tributes have become a shrine to his memory outside the Medical Centre where he was stabbed.

Dean Gabay has been charged with Arron's murder and was due to appear at the Old Bailey today.

Detective Police Inspector Andy Manning appealed for information and was particularly keen to speak to a woman with a pushchair who was seen nearby.

He said. "Arron was young man with a steady job, from a good family and was in a committed relationship with his girlfriend. He had his whole life to look forward to."

Another NHS Brent Committee looking for representatives

I must admit I am losing track of the various committees and groups involved in the local NHS. The voting for Brent LINk closes tomorrow. It may eventually become Brent HealthWatch. I have now been sent the poster below asking for community representatives on the  NHS Brent Equality, Diversity and Engagement Committee (EDEN).  I suggest you ring to find out more.

Making hay while the sun shines in Fryent Country Park

I had the first class of the Autumn term in Fryent Country Park today.  The Year Ones were studying seeds and seed dispersal and eagerly searched for seeds and fruits in the meadows and hedgerows of the park and found them in great abundance, although the squirrels seemed to have had all the acorns.

They enjoyed watching a pair of kestrels hovering while hunting over Gotsford Hill and were excited by toads, tadpoles and newts as children have been for centuries.

Walking back across the fields from Kingsbury to Wembley I found hay making in progress.  Few realise that Fryent Country Park is a certified organic farm for hay which is sold off contributing to park expenses. Harvest was delayed by bad weather and sodden ground difficult for tractors to negotiate. Hay prices have gone up as a result but today's crop looked in pretty good shape.

Enjoy the pictures below and reflect on how fortunate we are to still have a little Middlesex countryside in our borough.

This is  a black and white photograph of my Aunt Muriel hay making at Bush Farm in 1942 complete with horse and cart. Today's baling machinery is much more advanced than her pitch fork but the hay left to dry before baling would be familiar.

Anyone wanting to book a class or club trip to Fryent Country Park should go to the Brent School Without Walls website HERE

Northwick Park accounts for 92% of all redirected A&E admissions

Doubts about Northwick Park Hospital  A&E Department's ability to cope now, let alone when other NW London A& E departments are closed have been reinforced by data published after a Freedom of Information request.

Between February and August 16th 2012, there were 49 requested redirections of patients to other hospitals. Of these 45 were from Northwick Park, usually to Central Middlesex which is of course ear-marked for closure. In addition Northwick Park transferred to Ealing, St Mary's, Hammersmith, West Middlesex and Hillingdon. 92% of all redirections were from Northwick Park. Hillingdon and West Middlesex had two planned redirections each. Central Middlesex none.

DCMS not to intervene in Brent library closures

Library campaigners will be disappointed to hear the the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has decided not to intervene in the Brent library closures.

The letter can be accessed below:

Navin Shah: Expecting Harlesden people to use Northwick Park A&E is 'absurd' '

Navin Shah, Londoin Assembly member for Brent and Harrow has published this statement on the closure of Central Middlesex Accident and Emerency unit.

I marched on Saturday (15th September) with local residents to keep Central Middlesex Hospital open.

The NHS plans to demote four hospitals in North West London. The proposals recommend the closure of Accident and Emergency departments at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Hammersmith and Charing Cross Hospitals.

This would mean Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent and Ealing will be without A&E departments, and will affect the provision of health care in North West London. Other departments at risk in the affected hospitals include intensive care, emergency surgery, paediatrics and maternity units.

Neither closing A&E at Central Middlesex Hospital, nor restricting its opening hours makes any sense. From personal experience I can vouch for how overwhelmed and over-stretched the A&E at Northwick Park Hospital is.

Since the very restricted opening of Alexandra Polytechnic the demand on A&E at Northwick Park Hospital has greatly increased. It is absurd to expect residents from the Southern parts of Brent like Harlesden to use Northwick Park Hospital given the, very poor public transport links. I would like this ill conceived closure proposal to be withdrawn, until this happens I am committed to fighting the closure plans to save local health services for the local community.

By Navin Shah AM

Without a risk assessment this NHS consultation is nonsense

The Coalition Government's failure to make public a risk assessment carried out on the NHS reforms created a huge controversy.

NW London NHS has gone one step further by refusing to carry out a risk assessment on the changes to the local health service and hospital provision it proposes in 'Shaping a Healthier Future'. Instead they will do so AFTER the consultation, which means of course that individuals, patient groups, GPs and local councils will not be fully informed of the risks when they submit their views.

What kind of democracy is it when you are unable to put forward an informed view because the decision maker won't carry out a vital assessment of the impact of proposed changes?. Changes which could be a matter of life or death

In case you missed it Rob Sale had a letter published in local papers last week about the issue:

We are writing to alert your readers to the way those pushing through the ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ changes to our NHS, including closure of the four A&E departments, are refusing to produce a ‘risk register’ for the stated options until after the ‘consultation’ finishes on the 8^th October and the decision has been taken.

This became clear at a meeting of the Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the eight local councils affected by the proposals held on 2^nd August in Harrow. The Vice Chair of this committee is Brent Councillor Sandra Kabir.

Preparation of a risk register, listing key risks with possible mitigation factors in clear tabular form is a standard tool used in assessing the pros and cons of courses of action. Brent Council has such a scheme in its Corporate Risk Register.

By refusing to carry out this process until AFTER the decision has been taken, the authors of these proposals show their unwillingness to consider the severity of the risk posed to residents by their plans, which clearly could be a matter of life or death. We, the people affected, and our elected representatives are to be deprived of this vital information during the consultation period. This must call into question the will for genuine consultation and, indeed, whether the whole process runs the risk of legal challenge, something we would encourage our Council representatives to investigate.

The Chair of the Committee, Cllr Lucy Ivimy (Conservative, Hammersmith and Fulham) made her position clear in an email to a member of the public who attended the meeting:

‘…for the NHS to produce (a risk register) only after the decision has been taken is extraordinary. The committee will be looking further into various aspects of risk. I am personally concerned that the full impact of the proposed changes has not been made clear in this consultation process’.

We therefore urge the Committee to insist upon risk registers for all of the options including 'doing nothing’ to be provided in advance of any meeting to reconsider risk and these documents should be publicly available. Time is running out.

Robert Sale

On Behalf of Brent Fightback