Shrewsbury Liberal Democrats

… to the new Shrewsbury Liberal Democrats website

Commenting on reports from the Electoral Commission that Tory officials had refused requests to be interviewed by investigators, Chris Huhne said:

“It’s extraordinary that officials of a major political party should refuse a meeting to answer questions from the regulator designed to ensure funding is open and honest.

“It’s the equivalent of a criminal suspect asking a police officer whether their work is really necessary.

“The Conservatives must now answer the question about who told their officials to withhold cooperation from the Electoral Commission. On whose authority was this request refused?”

Cllr Peter Phillips, Lib Dem Policy Spokesman on Shropshire Council, is continuing his pressure for chiropractic, osteopathy and acupuncture to be provided by the Shropshire PCT (Primary Care Trust).

Peter said “These are proven treatments.  They keep thousands of people mobile and out of hospital.  NICE – the government’s watchdog – last August (2009) issued guidance to local health services to provide them on the NHS.  What is Shropshire doing?  NOTHING!  Not only that – their Board has no plans to review the matter. Indeed – no review of what therapies it’ll commission – is even contemplated!  Where is NICE in enforcing its guidance?

Parliament

“Last Week Norman Lamb MP (Lib Dem Health Spokesman) tabled a written question to the Minister of Health, Ann Keen, to find out how many PCTs offer osteopathy/chiropractor/acupuncture on the NHS – and she doesn’t know!”

Mr Lamb added “I shall be interested to see how Peter’s initiative works out.  It seems the Minister of Health is spending billions but doesn’t know how it’s being used!  And its watchdog, NICE, is not able to tell them.   And NICE is unable to enforce its own guidance!  What a mess!”

Cllr Tracey Huffer added “I know – I work in the health service – that these treatments work.  NICE is quick enough to stop PCTs prescribing drugs it thinks are too costly, so why can’t they enforce these effective preventive therapies? I intend to put the matter on the Scrutiny Panel agenda.  We need to argue the case for those hundreds of people who endure back pain.

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Special Report by Dr Charles West

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Public concern is mounting about  local NHS services.  It has been revealed that the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital missed the government target for 18 week treatment in December and probably missed it in January as well.

As a result of severe winter pressure on beds, surgical admissions have had to be cancelled and some patients have waited for hours for a bed to become available. 
What is more the hospital is too full.  To allow for efficient running of a hospital the maximum recommended occupancy is 85%.  This should allow well-ordered admission and discharge, enable cleaning between patients, and ensure that patients are in the most appropriate ward.  The RSH is running at 98.8% occupancy.

And now the Health boss Tom Taylor has resigned.  Tom Taylor has seen the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals through a difficult period, but his departure at this time will present additional difficulties for the hospital service locally.

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Dear Editor

Defence cuts have already bitten into our local activities, including the Army Cadet Force. The Command Centre in Shrewsbury has more recently come under threat.

The culprit, of course, is the Government – the local commanders have no choice but to adapt to a reduced budget. Thus I moved a motion – not the Tories, as reported in Friday’s Star – to make the strongest protest to HMG or involve our MPs. I also urged Regional Command to be aware of Shropshire’s views.

The Tories removed ‘protesting to the Government’ – a Conservative Council going along with Labour’s defence cuts!

With friends like these, the army need not seek foes!

Cllr Peter Phillips

Campaigners from the European Breast Cancer coalition joined Lib Dem MEP Liz Lynne in Brussels this week to lobby Euro MPs to sign up to a call for universal cancer screening for women between the ages of 50 and 69.

Supported by three other MEPs from different parties, Liz Lynne has put down a Written Declaration calling for the plan as part of a sustained Europe-wide campaign to beat the disease, which kills nearly 90,000 women in Europe every year.

Liz Lynne MEP is co-chair of MEPs Against Cancer and has worked closely with the European Breast Cancer Coalition of cancer charities, also known as Europa Donna, in drawing up the proposals.

The Declaration calls for every EU member state to introduce nationwide breast screening, and for the Commission to draw up a progress report every two years.

Liz Lynne said: "An encouraging number of Euro MPs from all parties have already signed this declaration, but we need to persuade many more to get it adopted and trigger a debate on the issue in Parliament. The threshold for that is 369 and the deadline is 25th March.

"Breast cancer is still the leading cause of death of women between 35 and 59, and across European Union nations over 331,00 women were diagnosed in the most recent yearly figures."

The Declaration also calls on EU Member States including Britain to provide multidisciplinary specialist breast care units following EU guidelines by 2016. To bring this about, the MEPs want the Commission to develop and fund a certification scheme to accredit specialist units to agreed standards by 2011.

Liz Lynne added: "At present there are very large differences in cancer care around Europe and best practice is not being applied everywhere. The best is very good indeed, but if we are to beat this disease, every woman in the EU deserves to have a health care system following best practice."

"We also want the EU Commission to ensure current guidelines are being implemented and more research into the effectiveness of screening women under 50 years old or over 69.

"National cancer registers in every EU country would also be a great step forward."

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“Slashing spending now could push the economy back into recession and inflict further structural damage on the UK," said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor.

Commenting on George Osborne’s Mais Lecture, Vince Cable said:

“Osborne’s latest economic commentary shows just how out his depth he is when it comes to the important economic issues.
“Slashing spending now could push the economy back into recession and inflict further structural damage on the UK that will make it harder to sustain our credit rating.

“He is at odds with his leader on when cuts should come and fails to appreciate that what the markets are looking for is a credible plan to reduce the deficit, not a willingness to slash regardless of economic conditions.

“In the current climate it is essential that decisions about the speed and timing of tackling the deficit are based on the state of the economy, not political dogma.”

Lib Dems claim:

• Knowingly misled parliament on the legality of the war. On 17 March, a day before MPs voted to authorise British involvement in the war, Straw told them: "There is no question about the legality of the action that we propose to take." The inquiry has heard that the two most senior Foreign Office legal advisers, Sir Michael Wood and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmhurst, believed the war was illegal.

• Breached the ministerial code by preventing the cabinet from seeing Goldsmith’s full legal advice. At paragraph 2.12 the code says: "When advice from the law officers is included in correspondence between ministers, or in papers for the cabinet or ministerial committees, the conclusions may if necessary be summarised but, if this is done, the complete text of the advice should be attached."

• Abused his powers and failed to declare a conflict of interest when he vetoed a freedom of information request to release the minutes of the cabinet discussion about Iraq on 17 March 2003. The Lib Dems believe Straw gave a misleading account when, as justice secretary, he vetoed the FoI request last year. He described the cabinet as "the forum in which debates on the issues of greatest significance and complexity are conducted".

Ed Davey, the Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesman, said: "Jack Straw has tried to hoodwink the cabinet, parliament and then the British people in his cover-up."

Local GP, Dr Charles West commenting on today’s verdict on the death of David Gray said,

“The NHS needs to learn some lessons from this, and learn them fast. Quality care cannot be done on the cheap, and the government’s obsession with chasing competition from private firms is putting cost before patient care.

“The out of hours care service that killed David Gray, and was also involved in the death of nine month old Taylor Smith had some key features that should have rung the alarm bells.

• It is private company brought in by the Local Primary Care Trust (PCT) to provide out of hours care.
• It had been criticised by local GPs over mistakes in prescribing diamorphine in the weeks prior to the death of David Gray.
• It was know to be facing financial pressure.
• It employed fewer doctors than most out of hours services, sometimes as few as 2 doctors to cover 600,000 patients.
• It recruited doctors from outside the area. Dr Urbani who gave the overdose of painkiller to David Gray flew in from Germany, was not familiar with British General Practice and had poor command of the English language.

“In addition both the coroner in this case and the NHS Care Quality Commission criticised the supervision of this company by the PCT.

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In the last two years, more than £2m has been cut from the Council’s £9m roads budget leading to deteriorating roads and delays to repairs and that’s without taking account of  the costs of salt and snow clearance this winter.

"The Tories have had no Severe Weather Fund," said Lib Dem Peter Phillips. "So they have been caught unprepared by the floods and snow of the last two years. And the roads maintenance budget has been raided. It’s a story of four years fecklessness."

Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate Cllr Heather Kidd, added, "We’ve had a month of snow and ice this winter – with no money to pay for it. Already a quarter of next year’s roads money has been spent on this year’s winter. No wonder the condition of our roads is a constant complaint from residents.