Banbury: Plea for anti-flood cash fails

A flood-prevention scheme for Banbury has failed to secure vital Government funding, preventing the project from going ahead - reports the Banbury Cake.

Since 1998, when the town last flooded, the Environment Agency has been working on a scheme to protect against a repeat occurance.

But the main part of the scheme, set to cost £12m, depended on support from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to go ahead.

Facing competition from flood-prevention schemes around the country, Banbury's bid for funding has not been successful.

Richard Harding, the Environment Agency's project manager for the scheme, said: "We are aware this will disappoint people hoping for the protection a scheme like this would have provided.

"We believed this was a perfectly viable scheme."

Kent: Hospital wards to be closed

Hospital wards across the county are facing closure as the cash-strapped NHS tries to balance its books, reports the Kent on Sunday newspaper.

Concern is being expressed for elderly patients as hospitals prepare to cut beds.

Wards for the elderly are under threat in Margate and Canterbury, and further cuts have not been ruled out at Ashford, Dover and Folkestone.

The cuts are being caused by the £35 million of debt being suffered by East Kent Hospitals NHS trust and are aimed at saving money so that this debt can be repaid.

Trust chiefs have refused to reveal the full details of their plans, but the Kent on Sunday has learned that two wards at Margate’s Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital are under threat, as is one ward at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

Wards could also be closed at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Buckland Hospital in Dover and Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone.

Kent and Sussex Hospital and Maidstone Hospital are also set to lose 120 beds, the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has said.

Campaign group Concern for Health in East Kent has raised fears that old and vulnerable patients may be forced out of their beds when wards are shut.

Article submitted by: Mr. D.B., Maidstone

Bedford: 200 jobs lost at hospital

This week more than 200 redundancies have been announced at Bedford Hospital, according to the local Bedfordshire on Sunday and Bedford Times & Citizen newspapers.

Union bosses have been told by hospital managers that up to one in eleven jobs will be cut because the hospital cannot meet its financial targets

In addition, more than 120 existing vacancies will be withdrawn or remain unfulfilled.

The hospital has brought in a financial ‘turnaround team’ to help pay back its £12 million deficit.

The moves have left staff from cleaners to consultants furious, with the cutbacks likely to affect patient care.

John Toomey, regional organiser for public sector workers union Unison said: "This is going to devastate the hospital.

There are not 200 people in the hospital who have little or nothing to do. Everybody is already rushed off their feet.

"We are not at a point where we can afford to lose 20 jobs at Bedford Hospital, let alone 200."

He added: "Bedford will not have a proper hospital any more, plain and simple."

Red tape kills care home

A holiday home that offers respite breaks for hundreds of disabled people is set to close after struggling to cope with the spiralling cost of care, reports the Eastern Daily Press.

The Norfolk-based charity which runs the home has been forced into the move because it can't find the £500,000 needed to meet the strict standards demanded by the government.

Hundreds of families from East Anglia depend on the centre to ease the strain of round-the-clock care.

One parent described her "total despair" if the home can no longer help her severely-disabled daughter.

All 23 staff, several of whom have worked there many years, have been told they face redundancy as the charity looks at a radical overhaul of its service to save money.

Maybe if the government weren't wasting billions of pounds by handing it to an organisation like the EU with a terrible record for waste and fraud, and that hasn't had its accounts approved by auditors for twelve years running, it could afford to make grants to hard-pressed charities like this one - to help them fund work necessary to meet the "strict standards" the government is setting.

Dorset: County council cuts libraries

The Blackmore Vale magazine reports on page 124 that swingeing cuts are being planned to Dorset's libraries in a bid by the County Council to bridge a funding gap.

The article states that: "A reduction in social care provision and the closure of a number of libraries across the county will not bridge Dorset County Council's funding gap.

"Further measures, including redundancies at County Hall are to be taken over the next three years to achieve potential savings of £20 million."

Surely it can't be right that the government is unable to find the money to provide Dorset with enough to sustain these essential local services, but can find the money to increase payments to the audit-failing EU by an extremely generous 63%.

Let's hope Dorset's MPs don't vote for such an obvious failure to properly prioritise scarce public resources, when the EU budget deal that pledged this increase comes before Parliament for approval.

Certainly the claims of MPs that vote for the terrible EU deal will never be able to claim credibly that they are standing up for public services.

Article submitted by: B.W., Dorset

Oxfordshire: 'Drugs would help me live longer'

The Oxford Mail reports today that a cancer sufferer fears he will die before he can finish his revolutionary eco-home because he has been refused what he believes is a life-saving drug.

Malcolm Cole, 67, from Fulbrook, near Burford, says he knows the Multiple Myeloma cancer he developed in 1993 will kill him eventually, but says a new drug called Velcade could buy him two more precious years of life.

That would give the former RAF officer the time he needs to complete a unique underground energy-saving home he has been working on for years.

However, although Velcade is available on prescription in Wales and Scotland, and in some prmary care trust areas in England, the South West Oxfordshire NHS PCT has denied Mr Cole the drug.

The trust said it followed the advice of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) which said the drug, which costs £30,000 for a course of treatment, was not cost effective.

Mr Cole says he is in a battle against time to get Velcade and believes that without the drug he will die of Multiple Myeloma, a form of bone marrow cancer, before Christmas.

"Doctors have given an oath to try to preserve life, but they have the power over life and death and I feel they have decided to end my life.

Mr Cole said he had seen evidence which showed the drug had a 70 per cent success rate, but PCT spokesman Alison Brumfit said: "Decisions made on funding are based on the cost of something against how likely it is to be effective.

"There has never been a limitless pot of money and it's true that the less money we have got, the fewer treatments we can provide, but decisions are never solely based on cost."

Certainly funding can never be "limitless" - nobody believes that. But there could be a lot more money available for less "effective" yet nevertheless helpful treatments if Oxford's MPs weren't so keen on wasting billions more on the audit-failing EU.

Sunderland: Health trust plans 500 job cuts

A health trust is to axe about 500 jobs in the latest round of NHS job cuts, the BBC reports today.

City Hospitals Sunderland Foundation Trust said it had to cut 10% of its 5,000 workforce to clear a debt of £5m.The trust, which runs Sunderland Royal Hospital, Ryhope General and Monkwearmouth Hospital, also wants to save £20m over the next few years.

It said it hoped the jobs could be shed through "natural wastage".

Since March 2006 more than 9,000 jobs have been shed by trusts across the UK. Chief executive of the trust, Ken Bremner, said losing jobs was a major concern, but necessary to save money over the next three years.