Latest news with #Farron
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
MP calls for health bosses to restore funding for GPs to treat minor injuries
South Lakes MP Tim Farron is calling on health bosses to reverse a decision to withdraw funding for GP surgeries to assess and treat minor injuries. The Locally Enhanced Service (LES) is no longer allowed for the assessment and treatment of minor injuries at GP practices across the Morecambe Bay region. The LES has been in use for over 20 years but a major review by the Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB has concluded that funding can be used elsewhere. READ MORE: Morecambe Bay NHS Trust appoints new chief medical officer Mr Farron has written to the Chief Executive of Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB calling for the funding to be restored. He also raised the issue with health ministers in Parliament on Wednesday (April 23). Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Farron said: "In rural communities like mine, our issues are very often about the distances that we have to travel in order to get any kind of healthcare, but particularly to reach hospitals. "In Morecambe Bay, which covers three quarters of my constituency population-wise, we are funded as if we have one hospital, but have to have three. "One way that we have got around that is to have funding for GP surgeries to provide minor injury care in places like Grange, Ambleside, Hawkshead and beyond - yet our local integrated care board has cancelled that funding. "There was a total of 1,221 minor injury assessments last year; they are now pushed on to the urgent treatment centre at Kendal, potentially overloading that excellent centre, but also causing huge harm to people who live in those rural and dispersed places, and undermining the funding model for those GP surgeries and putting them at risk. "I would love it if the Minister had words with the ICB to challenge it on this.' READ MORE: Burton-in-Kendal fashion event raises hundreds for charity Across 2023 and 2024 surgeries around Morecambe Bay conducted at least 1,221 minor injury assessments. The service helped alleviate pressure on hospitals by providing accessible care closer to home, particularly in areas such as Grange, Ambleside, and Hawkshead. Professor Craig Harris, chief operating officer for Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), said: "The ICB has recently undertaken a major review of the locally commissioned services provided by general practices to ensure we are commissioning consistently across Lancashire and South Cumbria. READ MORE: Kendal: Fish and chip shop owners still doing well despite price hikes "One of the services we have looked at is minor injuries, which is provided by general practices in a few parts of Lancashire and South Cumbria. After thoroughly considering the options, including engagement with clinical colleagues, a decision was made to discontinue the general practice service as there are other minor injury services and sources of advice available to our local population. "As part of this review, the ICB has increased investment into an extended range of general practice services which aim to provide more care closer to people's homes. For more local health services news, subscribe to the Westmorland Gazette "In case of minor injury, patients are advised to call NHS 111 or use 111 online and/or seek self-care advice from their local pharmacy.'
The Herald Scotland
23-04-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Introduce ‘practical solutions' to make rivers clean and safe, Lib Dems urge
The Liberal Democrats tabled a Commons motion calling on the Government to take 'urgent action to end the sewage scandal', including the introduction of a new 'Blue Flag status' for rivers and chalk streams. The proposal is designed to give waterways greater protection against sewage dumping and ensure the public knows when rivers are clean and safe. In response, Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the amount of sewage entering rivers, lakes and seas was a 'national disgrace'. He said it was wrong parents had to worry about the health of their children if they were playing in rivers or seas. Mr Farron told the Commons: 'Our proposal today aims to highlight the scandal of the pollution of our waterways and it calls for some practical solutions that will make a difference. 'The Government's recent Water Act was a step in the right direction following the failure of the last Conservative government to take meaningful action. 'Yet that Act was surely also a missed opportunity for the radical transformation of regulation and of ownership that is essential if we're going to clean up our waterways and clean up the water industry as a whole. 'Sir Jon Cunliffe's review gives us the hope that a more ambitious second water Bill might be coming, but there is no guarantee of that so our job as the constructive opposition in this place is to hold the Government to account and urge them to make the big changes that Britain voted for last July.' Mr Farron, whose constituency includes Lake Windermere in the Lake District, added: 'Politics is a great calling, it allows us in this case to establish the structures that will enable that stewardship of our waterways to be effective, to mean more than just words, but to mean practical change for the better. 'Our motion today gives the House the opportunity to do practical good, and to do so now without further dither or delay.' Mr Reed said the current level of discharge into waterways was a 'toxic result of years of failure by the previous Conservative government'. He said more than £25 million was paid to chief executives of water companies during the last parliament. MPs heard the Environment Agency had its funding cut by half between 2010 and 2019, which led to a fall in water bosses being prosecuted. He said: 'Instead of fixing our sewage system before a problem turned into a crisis, the Conservatives stood back and let water companies divert millions of pounds of their customers' money into the pockets of their bosses and their shareholders.' Labour tabled an amendment that rewrote the Liberal Democrat motion, instead making reference to the Government 'inheriting a broken water system,' and that ministers had taken 'tough special measures' to clear up rivers, lakes and seas. Mr Reed highlighted new powers introduced by the Water (Special Measures) Bill, including water companies having to publish information on the frequency and duration of discharges from storm overflows, and action plans on how they will reduce them. 'These measures give the water regulators new powers to hold water companies to account and ensure customers and the environment always come first. We can, and we will turn the water sector around,' he said. Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins said: 'We all know and agree that there are fundamental problems facing the water and sewerage industry. A drainage and sewage system that was first built in the Victorian era does not meet the needs of the population that it must now serve, or the pressures of more frequent and severe weather events.' Ms Atkins joked she was delighted to see Mr Reed in the Commons, adding 'normally he's running frit from farmers'. She said: 'We have had an underwhelming trickle, a review, yet another talking shop forum that hasn't done anything other than have a meeting, and a Bill that has – as we described it during the passage of the Bill – set out much of what was already happening. 'And as with every other part of this Government, they had no plan and they are now trying to come up with one.'
New European
19-03-2025
- Politics
- New European
Lib Dems set to spar over arcane rule row
The closest thing the Liberal Democrat spring conference normally has to fireworks is the falafel stand running out of stock or the shenanigans at its closing 'Glee Club' – a bawdy karaoke party featuring 'hilarious' spoof songs about rival politicians. But that may change this weekend as the party spars in the spa town of Harrogate. Just eight months after winning 72 seats in the general election it has decided to plunge itself into a divisive and entirely arcane row about how parliamentary candidates in England are selected. Presently the English section of the party decides on the rules and processes for selecting candidates in England. But under an amendment to be presented to the party's spring conference on Saturday by former leader Tim Farron, this role would be transferred to the federal party on the basis that 'the party body responsible for running general election campaigns should also be responsible for the candidate process, just as is already the case for Holyrood and Senedd elections as well as local elections'. Which all sounds incredibly dull, but is precisely the sort of thing which gets Lib Dem activists up in the morning. Opponents mutter darkly that Farron's amendment is numbered 'F10', with one member writing on the Liberal Democrat Voice forum: 'The F10 function key on my keyboard serves as a mute button. And that, unfortunately, is what the F10 motion up for a vote this Saturday in Harrogate would also do: mute the voices of all those that want to be able to choose their candidate for Parliament in their hometown.' The changes have the support of the top of the party, having been recommended by a review of last year's general election chaired by Farron himself. That said that 'major changes are needed to our Westminster candidate processes in order for us to better support candidates and win more elections'. But it has sparked fury among many lay members, who have compared it with a similarly centrally imposed control of candidates and diversity drive carried out by the Conservatives which gave them, er, Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries, Chris Pincher and Kwasi Kwarteng. Still, it's nice to see that with the planet burning and on the brink of potential global war, the Lib Dems have their priorities straight. The eyes of the world will be on Harrogate this Saturday!
BBC News
06-03-2025
- BBC News
Arrest over child killed by car on Kendal sports pitch
A man is being questioned over the death of one child and injuries to another who were hit by a car which crashed through a fence and on to a sports pair were struck at Kendal rugby club at about 17:00 GMT on Wednesday, Cumbria Police male driver, who is aged in his 40s, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of causing death by dangerous Farron, the MP for the area, described the crash as "devastating, utterly heartbreaking news", adding: "Our community in Kendal is stunned and in mourning." There was a police presence at the rugby club into the night, with officers saying the car involved was a black BMW i40. The Reverend Canon Shanthi Thompson, from Kendal Parish Church, said a moment of silence was held after its Ash Wednesday service "because it's so hard to find the words to say at a time like this"."Kendal is a very close community and many, many people will have links to the rugby club and people will know the children involved," she told BBC Radio Cumbria. At the sceneJennie Dennett, BBC Radio CumbriaThe sunrise here is lighting the frosty pitch and the very wrong sight of two buckled fence panels that are pitchside, opposite the clubhouse car green panels have bent right over in front of the drop down to the pitch and there is blue and white police tape across the gap in the an indication of the awful consequences of yesterday's crash. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
