Central Middlesex A&E closure announcement makes People's Inquiry even more important

Jeremy Hunt's announcement today that Central Middlesex Accident and Emergency ward is to be closed will come as a bitter disappointment to Brent health campaigners, particularly after the euphoria which greeted the Lewisham Hospital campaign's court victory yesterday.

Hunt's decision shows that that the Tories have absolutely no understanding of the needs of an area such as Harlesden/Stonebridge and the social and health inequalities that make an easily accessible local facility so important.

Campaigners will be considering next steps along with those fighting for Hammermith hospital but meanwhile after the announcement  it is even more  important that as many people as possible submit evidence to the People's Inquiry into the London Health Service. Details LINK and attend the local meeting of the Inquiry which will be held. Send your views using this LINK

• Friday Nov 8: 2pm-7pm, Ealing Town Hall, New Broadway, Ealing, W5 2BY. View map:

This is the trenchant evidence to the Inquiry submitted by Harlesden resident Sarah Cox:

I am a 76 year-old retired early years teacher. I worked for more than 30 years in Brent schools and have lived for more than 40 years in Harlesden. I am also an outpatient at Central Middlesex Hospital.

As such, I was extremely concerned about the likely effect of the changes enshrined in the Shaping a Healthier Future consultation and also about the consultation itself.

I followed the consultation carefully, read the documents and attended meetings called by NHS NW London and public meetings organised by local health campaigns. Overall, the consultation was more like a public relations exercise. Its questionnaire was designed to reach a desired conclusion rather than to look at the real health needs of the vast area it covers.

I am very concerned about accountability. NHS NW London made the decision to go ahead with the changes, but went out of existence before the process of introducing them had even begun. Who will be accountable if they turn out, as many of us believe they will, to result in damaging cuts to our health services, rather than improvements?

Although I will concentrate on the likely effects of changes to the area in which I live, I believe that all the changes will have knock-on effects on neighbouring areas and I am strongly opposed to the whole package. My husband was referred from Central Middlesex Hospital where he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, to Charing X where he was expertly treated. The co operation between the two hospitals was exemplary. Cuts to any of the hospitals will increase the strain on the others and on the ambulance service.

I believe that the case for fewer specialist hospitals further apart has been made for stroke, heart attacks and some serious injuries and services have been developed in line with that. Ambulance crews know the best place to take such patients and expert paramedics are able to stabilise them before transporting them to the best hospital. However, I do not believe that the extrapolation to other conditions such as serious asthma attacks, is justified. The surgeons want a concentration of expensive high-tech facilities in fewer, larger hospitals. What they ignore is the vital importance to patients' recovery of being in a setting that is accessible to friends and relatives. There has been a great deal of publicity recently about poor standards of care on understaffed wards. The best insurance against inadequate care is the vigilance of patients' families.

In fact, although we are told that the plans are based on clinical evidence, they are really based on a desire to cut costs. It the plans go through, nearly 1,000 beds and 3,994 clinical jobs will go from hospitals in NW London, saving £1billion over three years. The remaining hospitals will not be able to cope, the ambulance service will not be able to cope, the 111 service is already inadequate and yet we are told that it is crucial to the success of providing alternative services in the community. 

One of the declared aims of the Shaping a Healthier Future strategy was to reduce health inequalities, but moving health provision away from the areas of greatest deprivation and lowest life expectancy, will in fact increase health inequalities.

As a resident of Harlesden Ward and having worked on the Stonebridge Estate, I am most concerned with the loss of services at Central Middlesex Hospital and the impact on the people of Harlesden, Stonebridge and the surrounding area. The Brent Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and in particular the Harlesden Locality Profile (accessible through the Brent Council website www.brent.gov.uk) shows that Harlesden and Stonebridge wards are among the 10% of most deprived wards in the country. They have high levels of unemployment and of long term disease and disability. They also have a higher than average birth rate, and a larger than average percentage of young children and large families and higher rates of teenage pregnancy. Yet the maternity and paediatric services have been taken away.

Areas of poverty and poor housing like these have, it is widely recognised, higher levels of respiratory disease and mental health problems among other health problems. The government welfare cuts will increase these problems.

If health inequalities are to be overcome, health services should be provided where the need is greatest. If access to health services is difficult, people living in poverty and facing many other problems are less likely to seek help and relatively minor problems can become more serious.

Some of the reasons why it is wrong to close A & E departments at CMH and Ealing (these arguments apply to other hospitals in areas of deprivation):

·        A & E services are the first port of call for patients with mental illnesses and they are likely to find it harder to travel further for help.

·        When patients attend A & E, other problems e.g. cancer are often detected and can be treated before they become more serious.

·       There is no simple public transport link from the Harlesden or Stonebridge areas nor from Central Middlesex Hospital to Northwick Park and cabs are far too expensive for people dependent on benefits, so people who are taken ill or have an accident themselves or whose children are taken ill or have an accident will be forced to call an ambulance adding to the pressure on the ambulance service.

·       Transport difficulties not only affect patients, they make it hard for family and friends to visit patients. Support and care from family and friends are important for helping patients to recover. Negotiations with TfL even on the simple extension of the 18 bus route to Northwick Park Hospital have been unsuccessful, so patients and their families and friends from the area around CMH will continue to find access to Northwick Park extremely difficult.

Northwick Park is already struggling to meet targets and ambulances are being diverted back to CMH from there and from St Mary's. If all the proposed closures go through, how will Northwick Park cope with the added burden on A & E maternity, paediatric services, surgery and intensive care?

How will the ambulance service cope with the extra demand? It’s struggling already.

Has there been consultation with the Fire Service about the effect of the proposed changes? 

Schools were not consulted by the Shaping a Healthier Future team, yet during the school day, thousands of children become their responsibility and if any are taken seriously ill or have accidents, school staff will have to go with them to an A & E department further away.  

Out of hospital care

Of course it is always best to keep people out of hospital if appropriate alternative care and treatment can be provided in the community and of course we need more preventive services. We are promised all sorts of out of hospital care to take the place of the lost hospital services, but will the resources really be there? There is already a shortage of trained, skilled community health workers, health visitors, midwives and specialist nurses as well as GPs. Will the CCGs really be able to train and pay for those we need when they are facing constant budget cuts? Successful treatment and care for patients out of hospital demands integration with decent social care services, but the swingeing cuts to Local Authority budgets mean that social care services are at best barely adequate and unlikely to aid recovery and recuperation for patients who have been treated out of hospital or discharged early from hospital.

Getting information about the CCG’s commissioning decisions before they are made is extremely difficult. There are massive documents with quantities of acronymic alphabet soup and a hierarchy of meetings, some useful, most completely opaque to the interested patient or campaigner and suddenly, before you know it, another service has been outsourced and privatised.

However often we are assured that the changes to the NHS are clinically driven, it seems clear that the real drivers are financial the transformation of the NHS into a cash cow for the private sector so that even if it remains free at the point of use for patients, it will be run for profit.

Sarah Cox

Forced academies: Victory and victims

Parents at Snaresbrook Primary in the London Borough of Redbridge were celebrating tonight after the Department for Education decided not to intervene in their school.  After being judged 'Inadequate' and put in Special Measures the school faced being forced to become an academy, a fate that has befallen Salusbury Primary School in Brent and is being challenged by parent campaigners at Gladstone Park Primary.

Unlike Salusbury and Gladstone Park, Snaresbrook and its parents had been strongly backed by Redbridge Council.

A DfE spokesperson said:

Our policy remains unchanged - we cannot stand by when a school is judged inadequate and believe that becoming an academy with the support of a strong sponsor is the best way to ensure rapid and sustained improvement.

Snaresbrook Primary School does not have a history of underperformance and has made significant progress after being judged to require special measures by Ofsted in June. We therefore do not plan to intervene to convert Snaresbrook to an academy.

However, being judged inadequate by Ofsted is extremely serious and we will continue to monitor the school’s progress in coming out of special measures.

Gladstone Park Primary too did not have a history of under performance and previously had a 'Good' Ofsted rating. Its results are still above the national average at Key Stage 1 and Key stage 2.  However despite passionate requests from parents Brent Council did not get behind their campaign or make strong representations to the DfE. Governors are currently consulting on an academy sponsor.

Meanwhile Roke Primary School (now Harris Primary Academy) parents are facing the consequences of the Croydon school being taken over by the Harris Academy chain in September.

Inside Croydon LINK reports than 1 to 1 SEN support has been removed in a move that some parents interpret as an attempt to reduce the number of SEN pupils in the school.  Children and parents were in tears after the news.

In a further move showing disregard for parents and pupils, the management  closed the Bourne Children’s Centre, which ran toddler and parents’ groups.  The building into a storeroom, causing a marked decrease in provision of service for families with children at the school.

Parents also accuse the academy managers of manipulating pupils attainment data in order to create the impression that the new academy is out-performing expectations. Parents report that pupils previously said to be exceeding levels in face to face meetings with teachers are now categorised as below expectations, enabling the school to claim vast improvement at the end of the year.

Inside Croydon reports:

Harris has provided each child with targets for the next half term, yet many parents said these had already been achieved in the last academic year when the school was still Roke Primary. The headteacher sent a letter telling parents that “previous levels you have been given may vary slightly to the levels recorded on this report”.

A spokeswoman for the Roke parents’ group told Inside Croydon:

We predict that results will now show remarkable improvement during the first year of the Harris academy and be used as a false benchmark of their success in turning our school around, as well as legitimising contentious forced academy policy.

Academy status and the new management have had to apologise for mistakes in homework which appeared to be cut and pasted from American websites and for unzipping 5 year old girls' dresses to check that what they wore beneath met the new school uniform requirements.

The Snaresbrook victory, along with the news from Lewisham, should reinforce campaigners' determination to fight for our public services. Let's hope Brent Labour will get behind them.

Kalwala and Butler first to be nominated for Brent Central

Tokyngton became the first ward to nominate for the Brent Central Labour Parliamentary candidate tonight. Outsider Cllr Zaffar van Kalwala who has worked on a gang strategy for the borough and has a following in Stonebridge is the male nominee. He is also currently active in the Harlesden Incinerator campaign. He beat heavyweight candidates such as Tony McNulty rhe former MP.

After the nomination Zaffar tweeted:

Delighted and honoured to be nominated by Tokyngton ward for Brent Central. Thank you to all my friends and family for their support

 The female nominee was Dawn Butler, the former MP for Brent South. She tweeted:

Thank you Tokyngton for an amazing nomination. I am honoured.

With 30 or so candidates the race is still fairly open but with only three female candidates Dawn Butler is likely to figure again in the lists. The 9 Brent Central wards out of the boroughs 21 wards will make nominations. See comment below for further details on the process.. 

10.30am Saturday to Stop the Harlesden Incinerator

A message from the Harlesden Incinerator Campaign

 STOP THE INCINERATOR IN NW10

The Site visit is at 10.30am this Saturday 2 November

PLEASE JOIN US at the site in Channel Gate Road NW10

FROM 10am ONWARDS to be ready to greet the Ealing councillors

Please bring your Banners and Placards –

A BROLLY, and a huge amount of POSITIVE SPIRIT

That means HOPE by the way NOT GIN!!!

WE CAN WIN……….

WE JUST NEED TO SHOW EALING THAT THERE IS COLOSSAL OPPOSITION TO THIS HORRENDOUS SCHEME

Now it’s down to each and every person to contact all their friends and neighbours

We need at least 500 people there on Saturday

then they will see how much people DO CARE

Don’t let a bit of rain keep you away, we need everyone to be there!

Don’t forget we will never have this CHANCE again !

Thanks Ian

Many thanks for all your support!

 @NOincineratorNO  and @NoNW10dump on Twitter.

Met accused of 'spying' on Green Party councillor

The Metropolitan Police have been accused of ‘spying’ on a Green Party councillor in Kent.

The accusations follow a Freedom of Information request revealing 22 police records relating to the Councillor Ian Driver’s activities as a campaigner in his local area

The majority of entries relate to Driver’s role as an organiser of a campaign protesting against the export of live animals from Ramsgate and Dover ports. One record notes a meeting in support of equal marriage organised by Councillor Driver.

The records released to Driver by the Metropolitan Police after he submitted a Data Protection Subject Access Request include 22 database entries covering the period June 2011 until June 2013.

Keith Taylor, Green Party Member of the European Parliament for the South East, will write to the Metropolitan Police insisting they delete the records.

Mr Taylor said:

It beggars belief that the Metropolitan Police have been recording the lawful activities of an elected councillor working in his community. Surely police officers have better ways to spend their time.

This revelation follows the folly of the Metropolitan Police’s long-running obsession with keeping tabs on environmental activists. All too often they are wasting taxpayers money.

There’s no doubt that the Metropolitan Police should remove these records of Ian Driver from their database.

Councillor Ian Driver said: 

A friend advised me to submit a data access request after I told him about how the police were taking photos and car number plates of everyone attending anti-live animal exports demonstrations. When I got the results back, I was flabbergasted. There was a page and half of database entries taken from what I believe is commonly known as the “Domestic Extremism Data Base” which is held by the Metropolitan Police.

All of the activities I have engaged in during the campaign against live animal exports from Ramsgate and Dover have been perfectly legal and above board. I simply can’t believe that hard pressed Police forces would waste time and money spying on me simply because I have exercised my democratic rights to peacefully protest and speak out against a brutal and barbaric trade.

I was amazed to note that one of the records mentions a meeting I organised in support of Equal Marriage at Margate in 2012. This is something which the Prime Minster, the Deputy Minister and Leader of the Opposition of this country all support, but for reasons unknown to me the Police decided that my act of organising this meeting should be recorded in a database used for spying on extremists and subversives. You couldn’t make this nonsense up

Victory for Lewisham Hospital campaigners

From Huffington Post LINK

The Court of Appeal ruled today that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt did not have the power to implement cuts at Lewisham Hospital in south east London.

Three judges announced their decision on the second day of a hearing in London.

Supporters of the highly-regarded hospital cheered when Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Sullivan and Lord Justice Underhill, gave their decision in an appeal brought by the Government over a High Court judge's ruling in July.

Mr Justice Silber had then ruled that Mr Hunt's move to downgrade A& E and maternity services was "unlawful".

Rosa Curling from law firm Leigh Day, who represented the Save Lewisham Hospital Group said: "We are absolutely delighted with the Court of Appeal's decision today. It confirms what the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign has been arguing from the start - that the Secretary of State did not have the legal power to close and downgrade services at Lewisham Hospital.

"This expensive waste of time for the Government should serve as a wake up call that they cannot ride roughshod over the needs of the people

Make London a 'Fracking Free Zone'

Brent Friends of the Earth's protest against fracking outside Willesden Green station garnered support from many residents who were opposed to the environment damaging process. Brent Council didn't quite get the purpose of the protest, stating deadpan that there were no plans to frack in Willesden Green and that clay was an unsuitable fracking medium.

The campaign is aimed at increasing awareness of the issue and getting politicians across London, councillors, Assembly members and MPs,  to commit themselves to oppose fracking.  Campaigners heard that one local councillor had received 50 emails on the day that the protest had been announced.

Despite the Council's statement, there are fracking possibilities nearby: Barnet Friends of the Earth are campaigning about a possible site in Edgware. The process uses huge amounts of water and areas of high population need all the water they can get. They also need clean water and fracking threatens to contaminate our supplies. The water table does not stop at borough borders.

The campaign is reminiscent of the Nuclear Free Zones that local authorities adopted a few years ago. The Council and other London boroughs could make a political and environmental stand by declaring Brent a 'Fracking Free Zone'.

One landmark tree lost in otherwise little damaged Fryent Country Park

 

Although the Barn Hill trees I mentioned in my previous post survived this morning's storm unscathed, there was a major casualty across Fryent Way on Gotsford Hill. Two hybrid Italian black poplars have long been a landmark on top of the hill, but alas only one remains.

The trees bent away from each other and were given the nickname 'the quarrelsome trees' or 'unfriendly trees' because they resembled children who'd had an argument and turned their backs on each other.

It was a strange sensation as walking across the fields I realised something was missing from the landscape. The fallen tree was like some great stricken animal, a sensation helped by its rough creviced bark that resembled an aged elephant's skin.

A passerby walking with his wife and daughter remarked, 'We'll have to call it the lonely tree in future.'

The breaking point

The fallen tree

The 'Quarrelsome trees' on the horizon last winter

The Lombardy sycamore avenue on Barn Hill was barely touched except for the loss of a few small branches and continues to rise above the oaks of Barn Hill.

Some oaks were damaged losing huge branches heavy with leaves and acorns, but I saw no uprooted oak trees.

The willows were buffered by the gales but only lost small branches. If gathered up and planted these will root themselves.

Some of the trees that seemed ripe to fall remain standing. This tree on Hell Lane/Eldestrete has been leaning at a dizzy angle for some time - and continues to do so.