Christmas
Coming soon to an NHS Mental Health Service near you……
Coming soon to a Mental Health Service near you.
Liberal Democrat/Conservative Cuts Threaten
NHS Mental Health Crisis
From Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk & Suffolk
On the first day of Christmas, NSFT took away… my care co-ordinator
Here is the story ‘Emily’ wanted us to tell:
“Before the cuts, I had four amazing care co-ordinators over ten years. They had the chance to get to know me, both when I was struggling but also when I was well. This meant they could push me to recover, taught me how to laugh and cry and then could keep me safe when I was scared. They have held on to the hope for me in my darkest moments and I have had the time to learn to trust them – seemingly impossible tasks. At times it has seemed they know me better that I know myself and so have helped me build my life.
Now, in the world of the ‘radical redesign’, four care co-ordinators in as many months is the new reality. For others, more terrifyingly, there is no one. No one to take that call when the world is crumbling around you. No one to stop the spiral into chaos.
The perfect present would be the person who will fight your corner with you, values your life and never gives up.”
Care co-ordinators and continuity of care don’t seem to appear on NSFT’s Christmas list.
Have a look at this brilliant website
Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk & Suffolk
See report from local paper below.
Suffolk: Mental health boss rejects crisis claims
Saturday, December 28, 2013
As a new campaign is launched against changes to mental health services in the region, the chairman of the NHS Trust which serves Suffolk and Norfolk has denied his organisation is in crisis.
However Gary Page did accept that some of the changes introduced by the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust had caused unforeseen problems – and were being partially reversed.
Overall, however, it was vital that the Trust changed the way it operated to take account of reduced funding and an increased demand on its services – it is facing a budget reduction of £40 million by 2016.
Mr Page said: “Unlike NHS acute services, our budget is not linked to the number of people demanding our services.
“As a result we are seeing an increased demand for our services at the same time as our budget is being cut. That means we have to look at new ways of providing services.”
He said the Trust had been faced with two options – cut some of its services because of lack of money, or redesigning the way it operates with the aim of maintaining services.
It had chosen the latter, but during the changes fresh issues had become clear.
Mr Page said: “There was a reduction in the number of staff. Much of this was through not replacing those who left.
The number of administrative staff was reduced in particular.
“However that meant that front line clinical and support staff ended up doing more administrative tasks which is not the best use of their talents so we are taking on some more administrators to help there.”
Campaigners have warned that the changes have led to long-term clients of mental health services seeing a reduction in their services – or a change in their support workers.
Related articles
- Increase in funding for Norfolk’s mental health services ruled out (edp24.co.uk)
- Suffolk: Bosses claim mental health services are heading towards a “national crisis” (eadt.co.uk)
- Bosses claim mental health services are heading towards a “national crisis” (goteleemedneg.wordpress.com)
- BBC NEWS; Mental health patient deaths ‘should force rethink’ (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Norfolk and Suffolk mental health service ‘crisis’ row (nhsreality.wordpress.com)
- Union concern over low staffing levels at Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (edp24.co.uk)
- Mental health referral delay figures ‘wildly inaccurate’, says trust (edp24.co.uk)
- Suffolk: Mental health boss rejects crisis claims (eadt.co.uk)
- LibDem- Conservative NHS Cuts bring England’s mental health services to breaking point (derbypa.wordpress.com)
Reports of damp soar in social housing as residents avoid turning on heating
Condensation dampness – regarded as major public health risk– is said to be increasing, with
experts blaming rising energy bills
An explosion in reports of damp and mould in social housing because tenants on low incomes can no longer afford to switch on their heating has emerged as the latest unwelcome sign of Britain’s cost-of-living crisis.
Social housing maintenance experts say a new condensation damp phenomenon – which was considered a marginal issue for social landlords until a few months ago – is a direct result of increasing poverty and rising energy bills.
Condensation dampness – regarded as a major public health risk because it can exacerbate respiratory diseases such as asthma – has emerged as a particular problem in northern England and rural areas where social housing tenants have been hit worst by welfare reform policies.
Related articles
- Citizens Advice reports sharp rise in social housing rent arrears cases (24dash.com)
- Two-thirds of social housing tenants in Salford now behind on rent as bedroom tax bites (manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
- Reports of damp soar in social housing as residents avoid turning on heating (theguardian.com)
- Rising damp: Landlords report a surge in mould complaints as squeezed tenants underheat homes (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Opinion: Call for chancellor to give social housing a break (24dash.com)
- Council’s Xmas card to social housing tenants: don’t spend your rent money on booze (boingboing.net)
- Social housing will perish if its supporters don’t defend it (theguardian.com)
No Waving but Angry: Stop the Fire & Rescue Cuts!
Daily Mirror UK weather: Angry flood victims confront David Cameron over Christmas storm damage
The Prime Minister was heckled as he visited flooded properties in the Kent village of Yalding,
where residents say they have had little or no help
Angry flood victims have confronted David Cameron this afternoon, heckling the Prime Minister as he visited a village seriously affected by the Christmas storms.
One woman, named as 49-year-old Erica Oliveras, said her local council had done nothing to help villagers in Yalding, Kent, where homes were severely damaged on Christmas Eve.
And in a heated on-camera exchange with the Prime Minister, the woman said she had been left stranded in her home with no electricity after council workers “went off on their holidays”.
She told Cameron: “We need electric. As I say, the council, from Monday, we have been trying to contact them, but they have all decided to go on their holidays. Nothing.”
She later told The Guardian: “We had no practical help whatsoever.
Read Full article here Mirror.co.uk
Related articles
- Power companies condemned over cuts (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
- David Cameron heckled on visit to flood-hit Yalding (theguardian.com)
- PM: ‘We’ve got to do more’ about flooding (itv.com)
- UK weather: Tens of thousands left without power over Christmas after winter storms disrupt holiday plans (independent.co.uk)
- David Cameron confronted by angry flood victim on Kent visit as storms batter Britain (metro.co.uk)
- Angry flood victim confronts PM over council ‘inaction’ (itv.com)
Ricky Tomlinson at Trussell Trust food bank: My proud city Liverpool does not deserve to go hungry
From Daily Mirror 24th December 2013
The TV comedy star is furious that a “prat” like Tory Government minister Lord Freud says people are just going to take advantage of a free meal
When I was asked to help out at a Liverpool food bank by the Trussell Trust and Len McCluskey, I leapt at the chance. But what I saw there really stopped me in my tracks.
The volunteers were working flat out packing food boxes for families who without their help would have nothing to wake up to on Christmas morning.
Then the manager Paul told me this was just one of a number of food banks in and around Liverpool and all of them would be rushed off their feet over Christmas.
In all there are 400 Trussell Trust food banks trying to feed 20,000 kids this Christmas. That’s on top of the 500,000 people they’ve fed since April, which is like feeding the whole of Wembley stadium five and a half times over.
Now Len and I are working class Liverpudlians – born and bred. We know what Scousers are like. Ours is a city full of proud people.
It’s obvious to us that the moment a family was forced to go to a food bank for help would’ve been one of the hardest of their lives – no matter how friendly the volunteers.
So it makes me furious when a prat like Tory Government minister Lord Freud says people are just going to take advantage of a free meal. Rubbish! These families are totally desperate.
Full Daily Mirror article here
Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ricky-tomlinson-trussell-trust-food-2957077#ixzz2oV7FPQWM
Related articles
- Food Banks ‘Will Help One Million In 2014’ (news.sky.com)
- Food bank debate: 20 things you need to know about food banks and hunger in Britain (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- The Guardian: Let’s debate our need for food banks – a national disgrace (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- We must not normalise food banks. Their proliferation is a mark of shame on this country (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Hunger names: Daily Mirror hands 130,000-signature food poverty petition in to Parliament (mirror.co.uk)
- Iain Duncan Smith accuses food bank charity the Trussell Trust of scaremongering (independent.co.uk)
- Britain’s Ministers Laughing in the Faces of the Poor! (inquiringminds.cc)
- Charities condemn Iain Duncan Smith for food bank snub (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- BBC NEWSNIGHT: Food bank charity attributes growth in usage to welfare reforms (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Ricky Tomlinson at Trussell Trust food bank: My proud city Liverpool does not deserve to go hungry (mirror.co.uk)
#Derbyuk, Public Support for the Firefighters is solid.
From the Guardian 23/12/2013
#Derbyuk, Public Support for
the Firefighters is solid.
- Fresh firefighter strikes as MPs look forward to 11% pay rise and festive feast (redpillmedium.com)
- ACT NOW ! SAVE Derby’s FIRE STATIONS (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Firefighters called to pump out properties following burst water main in Norwich (edp24.co.uk)
- Firefighters collect 40,000 signatures against proposals to close 19 Derbyshire fire stations (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Firefighters raise £1m with recycling scheme – Northamptonshire Telegraph (greentomorrows.wordpress.com)
- Firefighters cut driver from car after ditch crash (manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
Merry Christmas from #Derby People’s Assembly 2013: Support the Firefighters
Image Posted on Updated on
Despair on the frontline of Britain’s homelessness crisis
Advisers at the homeless charity Shelter
are taking 500 calls a day from distraught people
Advisers at Shelter’s national helpline are doing everything they can to make the call-centre office feel like a cheerful environment. Tinsel with Christmas baubles has been hung from the ceiling, tiny silver Christmas trees and felt reindeer have been stuck on the tops of computer screens, cotton-wool icicles are hanging from the windows, and colleagues have brought in mince pies and chocolates to share.
You quickly understand why maintaining a good mood in the office is important if you spend time listening in to the calls that come in, at a rate of around 500 a day, from people facing imminent homelessness or already sleeping rough and seeking advice about how to find somewhere new to live.
The anxiety and emotion that pours into the headsets of crisis advice workers in this crowded fifth-floor Sheffield call centre offers a snapshot of the UK’s worsening homelessness crisis. Advisers at Shelter’s helpline are processing more calls than ever. Last year there was a 15% increase in the volume of calls – a reflection, staff think, of the degree to which people are struggling with rising house prices, soaring rents, cuts to housing benefit and the long shadow of the recession. A day spent at the centre provides a clear picture of the kinds of housing problems people face, as pressure on council house stock intensifies and radical changes to benefit entitlements are introduced.
An employment adviser calls on behalf of a 23-year-old client whom he is trying to help find work – a process that is complicated by the fact that the man, and his young girlfriend, have nowhere to live and are sleeping on the streets. The girlfriend is 18 weeks pregnant and, for reasons that are unclear, her father has thrown her out. Sharon Reeves, one of the helpline advisers, calmly explains the best course of action. “If she is pregnant, they would be in priority need. It sounds like the council has just fobbed them off. They should have provided them with a bed and breakfast to stay in. They should really go back to the council and challenge it,” she tells the man.
Related articles
- The homelessness crisis and how Shelter tries to help (theguardian.com)
- 4,000 homeless expected to seek refuge this Christmas (standard.co.uk)
- Homelessness rises as recession and welfare reforms bite (walesonline.co.uk)
- Number of homeless in England has risen for 3 years in a row, report says (theguardian.com)
- ‘Thousands of homeless people’ to visit charity’s Christmas shelters (standard.co.uk)
- Sudden rise in homelessness blamed on housing shortage and the ‘bedroom tax’ (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- What’s it like to be homeless at Christmas? We join Shelter to find out (metro.co.uk)
- Homelessness services feel mounting pressure as welfare reform bites (theguardian.com)
- Rising homelessness shows the damage caused by welfare cuts (newstatesman.com)
We are re-living a traditional Victorian Christmas – of excess for the few and struggle for the many
The rich are getting richer to an extent that is breaking our society – and our economy – apart.
By Duncan Exley Published 23 December 2013
When it comes to Christmas, we British are gonna party like it’s 1899; watch the TV over the next week and you will see countless images of an idealised Victorian Christmas, probably including families gathering round a tree and urchins gazing through the frosted window of a toyshop.
Unfortunately, this Christmas will be more authentically Victorian than we’d like, not just because Bob Cratchit’s great-great-great grandson is once again struggling to buy festive poultry, but also because while most of us are getting poorer, the great-great-great grandsons of the top-hatted gentry are getting richer to an extent that is breaking our society – and our economy – apart.
Some of the signs of poverty are well-known: the low-paid parents forced to resort to food banks and the huge growth of the payday loan industry – a modern-day equivalent of the pawnbrokers (although the latter have doubled their numbers in the last four years, too). This poverty is not just about low incomes; it is also about income insecurity. Victorian stevedores each day hoped they would get lucky and be assigned work, whereas today growing numbers of workers wait to see how many – if any – hours of work their employer will give them.
Related articles
- We are re-living a traditional Victorian Christmas – of excess for the few and struggle for the many (newstatesman.com)
- Hungry Christmas: Food Bank Use Soars (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Bob Cratchit: Whiny Ingrate (mediumlarge.wordpress.com)
Hungry Christmas: Food Bank Use Soars
This Christmas more people than ever will be relying on food banks in the UK.
Despite the government’s talk of a recovery, thousands of people across the country are going into the Christmas period with the grinding desperation of poverty and hunger hanging over them.
In my report, Hungry Christmas, I’ve exposed a huge increase in the number of people relying on food banks in South East England. The region – the second richest in the UK – has seen a 60% increase in the number of people relying on emergency food handouts this year and the total number of those needing emergency food handouts is likely to hit 70,000 for the year April 2013- April 2014.
These statistics are shocking enough, but behind each statistic is the story of someone who is living in the sixth largest economy in the world yet struggling to feed themselves and their family.
This year I’ve toured my constituency visiting the food banks which are straining to keep up with rising demand. It’s at these food banks that I’ve met people like John.
Full article from Huffington Post here
Related articles
- Food bank usage up 60% in south-east England, UK’s second wealthiest area (blueandgreentomorrow.com)
- Food bank debate: 20 things you need to know about food banks and hunger in Britain (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Food poverty: so, which of the hungry poor most ‘deserve’ charity help? (theguardian.com)
- Food Banks ‘Will Help One Million In 2014′ (worldobserveronline.com)
- BBC NEWSNIGHT: Food bank charity attributes growth in usage to welfare reforms (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- We must not normalise food banks. Their proliferation is a mark of shame on this country (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- 10 Things Food Banks Need But Won’t Ask For (b4inmain.wordpress.com)
- The Guardian: Let’s debate our need for food banks – a national disgrace (derbypa.wordpress.com)
- Eight out of ten say David Cameron must raise the minimum wage to stop children going hungry (mirror.co.uk)
- Charities condemn Iain Duncan Smith for food bank snub (derbypa.wordpress.com)
Domestic abuse: half a million victims ‘too terrified to come forward’
Study uncovers hidden casualties of violence, many of them too scared to report the crime
-
Mark Townsend The Observer, Sunday 22 December 2013
More than half a million victims of domestic abuse are too terrified to come forward and report their experiences, according to provisional estimates of research that specialists hope will quantify the true extent of the crime.
Citizens Advice has conducted research over the last year that reveals a higher level of abuse than previously reported. A pilot project in nine areas across the UK, in which clients were asked a series of routine questions when seeking help with issues such as debt and housing problems, found that 27% had experienced domestic abuse at some time since the age of 16 – three percentage points more than the national average reported for all women in the latest crime survey for England and Wales.
If extrapolated across the UK, the specialists believe that could mean there are up to 540,000 more victims of domestic abuse, the vast majority of whom would have stayed silent, according to Citizens Advice, which now plans to roll out the scheme service wide
Remember there have been massive Conservative- Liberal Democrat Austerity cuts to local Social Services,
Local Authorities and Charities working with those people going through or survivors of Domestic Abuse.
Women will die because these services have been cut, underfunded and degraded.
Related articles
- Campaign launched to raise awareness of domestic abuse increase over Christmas period (yorkpress.co.uk)
- White Ribbon Campaign – Say NO! to Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (jason4tupsley.com)
- Opinion: The missed opportunity – a new approach to identifying domestic abuse (24dash.com)
- Do Not Suffer In Silence From Domestic Abuse At Christmas (femaleimagination.wordpress.com)
- Greek police report spike in domestic abuse cases (trust.org)
- Clare’s Law can help other victims, says victim of 25-year domestic abuse ordeal (manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
- Report domestic violence, police urge as Christmas campaign is launched (newsletter.co.uk)
- More domestic abuse being reported (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
- 64 cases of domestic abuse reported every day in Kent (365pathsonearth.com)
Derby People's Assembly 