Right to Contest – Dulwich Hospital

 The NHS could be forced to hand over part of the Dulwich Hospital site for a new secondary school after a local councillor formally referred the matter to Government Ministers.

A decision on its future will now be made by a panel comprising of Treasury Ministers and the Cabinet Office after I invoked new ‘Right to Contest’ powers to push the NHS, which owns the land, into selling it on. WS Dulwich Hospital 131216_Right_to_Contest_application_form_final

Despite the site being 27,000m² – the size of around four football pitches – currently less than a tenth of the space is being used.

I submitted the application earlier this month (5 February). I want to see at least half of the spare land used for a new secondary school to help plug the shortfall of permanent school places in the area. Land would also be available for the health centre already being planned on the site.

I believe this to be one of the very first applications of its kind in the country, after the new powers were introduced by the Government to free up public land and help boost economic growth. Launching the scheme in late January, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander MP said the Government “should not act as some kind of compulsive hoarder of land and property” that could be better used for other purposes.

My application will now go forward for review by the Government panel, which will also see input from the NHS and the Department of Communities and Local Government before a decision is made.

It is amazing that after 20 years of false starts the Dulwich Hospital site is still in limbo. It is a criminal shame that so much land stands idle and under utilised for decades, especially when money is tight.

Dulwich desperately needs a new local secondary school – not children being bussed far and wide as Labour propose. That’s why we have submitted an application using new Right to Contest rules on the use of public land, which were introduced by Liberal Democrat Ministers in government.

We are on the side of local parents who want to see a new and much-needed secondary school in the area, and an end to Dulwich Hospital being left as an empty wasteland….

Dulwich Hospital cleared site

Council Crashes

Southwark Council officials have recently been suggesting that council vehicles crashing into cyclists 13 time in 1.2million miles driven by staff, who are professional drivers, is ok or even good.

This sounded really odd to me. So after a tiny bit of digging this is what I’ve found.

All car mileage in 2010 was 290billion miles covered by 28.7million cars. That ALL crashes of any severity of injury equalled 209,000 in 2010. Therefore for normal non professional car drivers a total crash rate of 1 crash for every 1.16million miles driven.

Clearly the council spokesperson is at best talking rubbish. If they have crashsed so frequently then clearly something seriously wrong.

The other tail end of the story was the council getting their truck drivers to get Certificate of Professional competence. This is a legal requirement! I should bloody well hope so.

Have you ever been crashed into by Southwark Council staff?

ED Changes for 2014/15

Every year local ward councillors get to decide how to spend some devolved Cleaner, Greener, Safer budget. The scheme started when Lib Dems first led the council in 2002 with only one year when it didn’t operate when the Labour administration wanted to use the money on pet Olympic projects.

I’m particularly excited by the prospect of improving the junction of North Cross Road with Lordship Lane. It’s one of our crash hot spots, doesn’t work well when closed for the street market on Saturdays. The Bike hangars will be a great experiment to see if they can work locally in East Dulwich – fingers crossed. And lastly trialling the Dulwich Hospital phlebotomy service on Saturdays. IT should really make it much easier for people to have blood tests outside of normal work hours and provide a real alternative to being at the hospital before 7am weekdays.

This year East Dulwich councillors have decided to allocate the following:

CGS capital:

–          ED Crime Prevention fund £10,000

–          ED street trees £10,000

–          Lordship Lane secure derelict property £4,500

–          Chesterfield £6,000 for upgrading street lighting to white light, £4,000 for pavement tree pit upgrading.

–          Bike hangars – fund 2 to be decided where most popular by residents £10,000

–          East Dulwich Community Centre (EDCC) children garden area materials £524

–          Bassano Street gating £2,000

–          Dawson Heights tree planting £1,000

–          Upgrade junction of NCR/LL £50,000

–          ED public Automated Emergency Defibrillators £5,000

–          Historic photos project £4,500

Total £112,524

 

CGS revenue:

–          Give and take EDCC events £1,500

–          Goose Green nursery improvements £1,400

–          EDCC gardening £700

–          WW2 plaques across Dulwich £667

–          Street cleaning machine extra half-time employee £11,605

–          Saturday Dulwich Hospital blood testing trial x 26 weeks (as per separate email) £20,000

Total £35,872

Lewisham Hospital

Great news about the Save Lewisham Hospital and Lewisham Council challenge in the high Court against the government about closing the A&E and maternity departments at Lewisham Hopsital.

If the closures had proceeded it risked placing intolerable pressures on Kings College Hospital affecting services for Southwark and Lambeth residents.

It does make you wonder why the Conservative Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt didn’t accept the Judicial Review and avoid the public expense of appealing.

We now need Jeremy Hunt to advise how these departments will be funded going forward.

Free NHS Flu Jabs

As part of the NHS free pan London Winter flu jabs the following Southwark pharmacies are now offering free flu immunisation service commissioned by NHS England – free to those who are pregnant, over 65, weakened immune system, asthmatic, carers, health condition or heart disease.

Local pharmacies offering this:

Davis Chemist – 10 Crossthwaite Avenue, Sunray Avenue, SE5 8ET

Day Lewis  Pharmacy – 34 Forest Hill Road, SE22 0RR

Sainsburys, 80 Dog Kennel Hill, SE22 8DB

Please do get immunised.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lordship Lane 20mph – at last

This week our long term plans to make Lordship Lane 20mph have come ot pass.

It’s now 20mph between Goose green roundabout and Melborune Grove where it meets Lordship Lane. 600m of high street now just that bit calmer.

We started trying to make Lordship Lane more friendly for locals and visitors walking about in 2006. In 2007 we had a Living Streets walkability assessment done which worked with locals to test the areas walkability.

Why? Because 99.99% of us walk.

We’ve added two extra formal crossings before, had many side roads with raised treatments, improved Goose Green with thrid arm having zebra crossings.

Last year Living Streets produced a report which reenforced our reasoning for this 20mph in particular is a Living Street report called The pedestrian pound. Making the main high street parts of Lordship Lane 20mph should make it better for people to walk around.

Any way the reports key findings:

•Research shows that making places better for walking can boost footfall and trading by up to 40%
•Good urban design can raise retail rents by up to 20%
•International and UK studies have shown that pedestrians spend more than people arriving by car. Comparisons of spending by transport mode in Canada and New Zealand revealed that pedestrians spent up to six-times more than people arriving by car. In London town centres in 2011, walkers spent £147 more per month than those travelling by car
•Retailers often overate the importance of the car – a study Graz, Austria, subsequently repeated in Bristol found that retailers overestimated the number of customers arriving by car by almost 100%
•Landowners and retailers are willing to pay to improve the streetscape in order to attract tenants and customers.

 

Funny Money

The Bank of England is thinking of replacing its cotton based notes with plastic ones. The latter ones sohuld last twice as long.

But a new study has found that bacteria loves some kinds of banknotes better than others. They steralised bank notes and the introduced MRSA or E.coli onto them. Euroes didnt pass E.coli onto people’s skin. US dollar passed on some bacteria. But the worst culprit was the Romanian leu a ploymer plastic banknote very similar to that proposed for the UK. So if the Bank of England plans proceed we can potentially expect to see more bacterial skins infections spread by our banknotes. Funny money indeed.

So the Bank of England will save a few millions but the NHS potentially spend more on fighting bacterial infections. Not joined up government.

Obesity Tide

Child obesity as with adult obesity has felt like a rising tidy. Very hard to hold the tide back that so often lead to poor health and reduce life chances.

But the U.S. despite the prevailing view we have of it all being fast food, fizzy drink etc has turned that tide. A new report from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found child obesity falling in 19 of 43 states from 2008-2011 in the poorest pre-school children. These are the children from the cohort most likely to be obese. Only three US states had an increase in child obesity. 

This compares really well with the period 2003-2008 when obesity increased in 24 states and decreased in 9.

Sadly in the UK we’re lagging behind. Child obesity is reported by the British Heart Foundation to have risen 1995-2011 from 11% to 17% of boys and 12% to 16% for girls. 

How do you think we can push back our UK tide of obesity?

GP Complaints and Praise – how to?

I’ve had a number of negative comments about local East Dulwich GP practices. I’m sure a number of complements are also out there.

Since 1 April 2013 to make complaints about NHS health care:

If you have a comment or a complaint about a GP, dentist, pharmacy or optician contact the London office of NHS England at england.contactus@nhs.net. You can also contact NHS England on 0300 311 22 33. There is more information available at http://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/complaint.

If you have a comment or complaint about a hospital, mental health or community trust please contact the respective organisation directly.

If you have a comment or complaint about any other local health service please contact NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group, via the South London Commissioning Support Unit at SLCSU.complaints@nhs.net or telephone 0800 456 1517

If you need support in making a complaint please contact VoiceAbility who provide NHS complaints advocacy at nhscomplaints@voiceability.org telephone 0300 330 5454, Textphone Number 0786 002 2939 or fax 0330 088 3762

More information on the website: http://www.southwarkccg.nhs.uk/GetInvolved/Pages/PALSandComplaints.aspx

Shocking London Bus Crashes

Very sad article about two buses a day on average crahsing with pedestrians and cyclists.

During the last six years 145,533 bus crashes. With 3,591 pedestrians and 1,219 cyclists injured or killed during that period. Injuries such as little Pollyanna Hope tragically losing a leg while on a pavement.

With London having 8,500 buses that means every year on average each London bus will have nearly 3 crashes (2.85). Even with their very high bus mileage it still seems an outrageous number.

But what I find shocking is that late in 2005 TfL with the First bus group deployed a $700,000 fully immersive Bus simulator to train bus drivers of off the roads. In the US they’ve been shown to help reduce crashes by 43%.

I had the good fortune to spend a day on it trying it out representing the London Cycling Campaign. You can really create a lot of tough driving quickly and repeatedly. Drivers can have what happened played back to them and really learn a lot quikcly. It got wrapped up in a light TV show but that didnt deter me from having a good go on the bus simulator. They threw sleet, storms, throngs of suicidal cyclists. First still say theyre operating it.

What was really surprising was the large insurance claims office at the other end of the bus simulator corridor. Never forgotten that. And with the stats revealed it’s not surprising they need such offices.

But the bus simulators proposed have never been rolled out across London as planned. And we still have an unacceptably high crash rate for fulltime professional drivers.

If you think London Buses need to do better and deploy bus simulators tell London Mayor Boris Johnson at mayor@london.gov.uk and copy me  james.barber@southwark.gov.uk