Tag Archives: Health

Safer streets

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Would you believe that some city governments are actually removing roadside cycle paths? In most places across the country there is a dire need for safer cycle facilities. Surely removing cycle paths is grossly irresponsible. Well it depends on the circumstances. If traffic is already going at less than 20mph then separating cycles and cars need no longer be necessary.

We believe people in Elmbridge want a better quality of life, a safer place to live and, if possible, an environmentally sustainable neighbourhood too. We feel that, for a whole host of reasons residential streets should have a maximum speed limit of 20mph.

Nearly all the road danger occurs in residential streets. More than half of road deaths and serious injuries occur on roads with 30 mph limits. Britain has the highest percentage of pedestrian road fatalities in Europe 20% and Britain has one of the lowest levels of children walking or cycling to school in Europe. British parents consistently cite traffic speed as the main reason why their children are not allowed to cycle or walk to school.

As the main roads will still have limits of 30mph and above, car journey times would hardly lengthen at all. Lowering residential speed limits to 20mph has been found to increase a 15 minute car journey by less than a minute.

Lowering urban and residential speed limits to 20mph has been found to decrease child pedestrian accidents by 70%. Where 20mph limits and similar measures have been introduced 24% of in town trips are made by bicycle. Noise levels are lower and crime falls too.

80% of the public and 75% of drivers support 20mph as a speed limit on residential streets and now city governments around the country are beginning to introduce citywide 20mph limits: Bristol, Edinburgh, Hull, Portsmouth, Northampton and Nottingham – Islington becomes the first borough in London.

A noticeable feature of area-wide 20mph limits is that as more people begin to live in 20mph streets they drive down other people’s 20mph streets at a more respectable speed. This re-enforces the lower speed limit for everyone – speed humps and chicanes become things of the past.

It is time for our residential roads to be equitably shared with all the users by setting an appropriate speed limit that protects the young and the vulnerable. The time for 20mph as a speed limit on residential roads in Elmbridge has come.

Elmbridge Cycle Group

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The group’s next ride will begin at the Hand and Spear by Weybridge Station at 10am, on Sunday, 9th December. It will finish at 1pm at the Jolly Farmer Princes Road, Weybridge and be followed by Christmas Lunch  at the Jolly Farmer.

If you would like to come to the Christmas Lunch please let them know by emailing george.james @ elmbridgecycle.org by Saturday, 1st December so that numbers cab be confirmed with the restaurant.  Please also let them know your food selection from the menu here.

Details of the ride route will be sent out, as usual, a few days before the ride.  If you just want to come on the ride, but don’t want to stay for the Christmas Lunch, then you can just turn up on the day.

Urgent Treatment Centres – What to expect

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New Urgent Treatment Centre Opens at St Peter’s

From 31 October, there will be an Urgent Treatment Centre, based at St Peter’s Hospital, serving patients of the North West Surrey CCG.  This is the closest such centre for residents of Weybridge.

Which conditions are treated at Urgent Treatment Centres?

Urgent Treatment Centres will treat minor injuries, and illnesses that require urgent treatment, these include:
• minor illnesses
• minor cuts and grazes, including those that require stitches
• minor scalds and burns
• strains and sprains
• bites and stings
• minor head injuries
• common infections, such as chest, ear and throat
• minor skin infections/rashes
• minor eye conditions/infections
• stomach pains
• minor broken bones such as toes, ankles, wrists, fingers and suspected fractures.

What if you cannot judge whether your case is minor or more serious?

Patients will be assessed at the Urgent Treatment Centre and then treated in order of medical need, including being referred on to A&E.
If your condition is assessed as minor and urgent (requiring immediate attention), you will be seen by an appropriate clinician in the Urgent Treatment Centre
If your condition is not urgent or immediate, you will be referred back to your GP.
If you are seriously ill, you will be referred to the Emergency Department which – at St Peter’s Hospital – is located next to the Urgent Treatment Centre.

Out of hospital services in North West Surrey

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Residents of Weybridge have been invited by the North West Surrey Clinical Commissioning Group (the CCG) to contribute their views on plans for out of hospital services in our area. The launch of this engagement is an event on Tuesday 2nd October, running from 3-8 pm at the Ship Hotel.

What services for Weybridge?

While the focus of the engagement goes beyond just the Weybridge Hospital rebuild, it is particularly pertinent for Weybridge. The CCG notice about the events says: “Following this engagement we will be better placed to determine the services that will eventually go into the new healthcare facility that will be built on the site of the old Weybridge Hospital.”

Register to attend

CCG staff will be able to give attendees a greater opportunity to put their views if attendance is spread out. People wishing to attend can sign up in advance and select a 30 minute time slot.

Weybridge Hospital

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A year ago, on 12 July 2017, Weybridge Hospital was destroyed by fire.

One year on

The two GP practices have now been re-established in very smart ‘portacabins’ on the site. There are also enhanced treatment rooms, staffed by nurses; the phlebotomy service; and the wound management clinic – an essential service for many of the older residents of Weybridge.

Pre-engagement meeting

On Tuesday 10th July 2018, local councillors and other community representatives attended a meeting with the North West Surrey Clinical Commissioning Group (the CCG). The CCG wished to outline plans for public engagement on local services across its area. The public engagement with Weybridge residents on the the rebuild on the hospital site will be part of this.

The CCG assured us that the Weybridge site will be used solely for healthcare and associated services (such as pharmacy, social care).

What was covered in the meeting

The meeting briefly covered progress on the technical aspects of the rebuild on the site and then considered views on services that could be available. The CCG set out the NHS policy and local healthcare context which will affect the eventual services provided on the site. From the CCG perspective, provision in Weybridge will need to fit with the overall plan for services across the North Surrey area.

Your local representatives were advocates for the citizens of Weybridge. Like you, we want access locally to the services we need.

What is possible?

One of the key concerns of Weybridge residents is to have the kind of services they received from the Walk In Centre delivered locally. However, NHS England has now tasked CCGs to reconfigure services that were previously delivered through Minor Injury, Walk In and Urgent Care Centres. These services are now to be delivered through new Urgent Treatment Centres. The CCG has not yet decided where Urgent Treatment Centres might be located within North West Surrey. This will form an important part of the CCG’s engagement campaign later this year.

One way of looking at this is that a new build on the Weybridge site gives the CCG an opportunity to design a mix of services that will meet current and future health and wellbeing needs of Weybridge residents in modern premises.  The CCG are very aware of the wishes of local residents with regard to local nurse-led, non-appointment services.

When will Public Engagement get going?

The CCG are keen to engage widely with Weybridge residents.  Engagement events will begin in September – advertised widely – and will include a range of ways to get involved. Full details will be posted later this summer on the CCG’s website, in other local bulletins and via local media.

You can be sure that your local councillors will also post on Facebook in the Weybridge Network Group.

Norman Lamb MP visits Walton

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Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP for Norfolk North, spoke in Walton on Thames last week  about Brexit and the NHS and social care.

BREXIT   He  started by saying  there is  hardly any debate on anything other than Brexit  going on in Westminster at the moment.  He said that he had not known anything like it, it was as if  normal service has been suspended.

He said that when the reality of the Brexit deal is determined; sometime in the Autumn, he anticipates strong disquiet in the Conservative ranks and does not believe Jeremy Corbyn is electable.  However,  he continued,  that sadly this has not currently led to a boost to the Lib Dems in the polls. An autumn a political constitutional crisis was likely  (note by author : Vince Cable said something similar) but felt it was very hard to predict how this will play out and how Theresa May might navigate her way through it.

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE    “ There was a  crisis in the provision of care,  we have seen a  15% increase in the need for care of the elderly over the last 10 years,  very rapid change.

  • 1984 there were 600,000 people in care in the UK,
  • 2002 there were 1,300,000
  • 2032 there will be 3,100,000

At the moment there are 1.2million people with unmet care needs. Half the population over 75 live on their own, and could become increasingly dependent especially as families have become much more dispersed, making  support difficult”.

He posed questions:

  • Should young people pay?
  • Should most of it be paid by older people?
  • Should freebies like winter fuel payments be paid universally?

We don’t yet have fair answers.

He said that traditional party politics are not moving this forward, although the Conservative manifesto proposal of guaranteeing that no one should pay more than £100,000 for their care was a brave initiative. However, it was not well received and was somewhat unfair as it depended on the value of property and on an individual’s wealth as only poorer people would likely have to sell their house.

So how to raise funds fairly? He had been instrumental in bringing together 90 cross party MPs to consider the options as Government is clearly not addressing the issue. It seems that Theresa May  is clearly not cable of taking initiative but wonderful at arranging consultations, she was  hostage to the right of her party and the Brexit process. The cross party group proposes that there should be a hypothecated charge of say 2% on income tax but it would be separately identified and separately and independently managed and monitored. It could be reviewed from year to year by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR)  This idea had been  discussed with various civil servants who are supportive.

He went on to talk about the very severe shortage of support for mental health issues especially with young people. When he was in the coalition (2010-2015) he set the first ever target for mentally ill patients to receive attention to be within 2 weeks of it being sought. This has drastically slipped now but it is widely recognised  advantageous.  If mental health problems can start to be tackled within two weeks the further development of the symptoms and the loss of employment, friends and society links can be substantially avoided leading to earlier recovery.

What next for Weybridge Hospital site and services

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In July 2017 fire destroyed the two GP practices, the walk-in centre and many other health facilities, offices and a pharmacy in Weybridge town centre. At a meeting late in July – attended by more residents than the hosts expected – the gathering was informed that, when the site was redeveloped, there would be, could be, no promise of restoring all the services which were lost in the fire.

Currently, residents of Weybridge believe that the two GP practices on the site will be restored but we do not know what else will happen with the town centre site.

We want to do our utmost to ensure that the residents of Weybridge are properly engaged in decision making about the future of health and care provision on the Weybridge Hospital site.

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Public workers’ pay cap

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We believe that the government should end immediately the public sector pay cap and allow public organisations to arrange their own pay structures. For example, Elmbridge borough does not follow national pay agreements simply because we could not recruit the staff we need if we kept pay within the British government’s guidelines. Since the recent dramatic fall in value of the pound the pressures on living standards have been even greater. The English health service is under strain as service demand increases and fellow Europeans begin to leave in anticipation of Brexit. Hospitals are put into the perverse position of having to hire agency nurses because so many full-time nurses are leaving. The British cabinet loves controlling everything. It has jettisoned Europe, it is now attempting to override parliament and it has long since emasculated local and provincial government. The health, fire, education and police services have their own
budgets so why not let them pay what they want and deliver in the way they want without being second guessed by Westminster.

Surrey Heartlands – the next five years of Health and Social Care in Elmbridge

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What’s happening to health and social care in our area?

Quite a lot actually!

The NHS has launched a programme to improve joined up working across health and social care services and is seeking to improve community provision for vulnerable groups – especially the frail elederly.

The mechanism for achieving this is locally based Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs).

Citizens of Elmbridge come under the Surrey Heartlands STP, which includes Surrey County Council, the two CCGs covering Elmbridge, and other healthcare providers.

As Surrey Heartlands has a much larger than average older population, there is a focus in the plan on improving serrvices for this group. Just to paint the picture, over the next 10 years the number of people aged 85+ will go up by 36% and by 2025 more than 20% of the population in our area will be aged 65+.

Public Engagement is also a key feature of the partnership working that is central to the new approach. This is seen as a way to involve citizens in “defining the priorities and trade-offs that will be needed to achieve this service transformation, within the resources available locally.”

A further feature of the plan is to trial devolution of powers and budget to Surrey Heartlands (see p10 in the plan). This is designed to enable “full integration with Surrey County Council, integrating health and care delivery with the wider determinants of health in our population”

If anyone is interested in getting involved as a community stakeholder, there is a stakeholder reference group meeting on 18 October at Leatherhead Leisure Centre, Guildford Road, Leatherhead starting at 2 pm. There is also a Surrey Heartlands Newsletter.

The contact person for both of these is: glynis.mcdonald@nhs.net

The Surrey Heartlands Sustainability and Transormation Plan can be found at http://www.nwsurreyccg.nhs.uk/surreyheartlands/Documents/Surrey%20Heartlands%20STP%20October%202016.pdf

The Devolution Agreement document can be found at
http://www.nwsurreyccg.nhs.uk/surreyheartlands/PublishingImages/Pages/News/Devolution%20Agreement.pdf