Sometimes we win battles!
Frack Free Calderdale is pleased that last week at their Annual General Meeting, Barclays’ Chairman John McFarlane told their shareholders that the bank would be withdrawing their financing of Third Energy – the company they own 97% of and that is licensed to frack in Ryedale, North Yorkshire. This could be a huge win for the anti-fracking and climate justice movement in the UK and one we should celebrate! Continue reading
Update 30 January 2025: Calderdale has one of the highest rates of NHS privatisation in England. (See graphic below.) An August 2022 LSE British Politics and Policy blogpost found that in areas with increases in outsourcing there are more deaths of people with treatable conditions.
In 2013 Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker assured me that there would be no privatisation of the NHS under this Government. Some of his constituents already knew better. The list of privatised NHS services in Calderdale was already long.
In 2015-16 Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group spent 13% of its £267,919,000 budget on non-NHS (ie private sector) providers.
This is not counting what it spends on social care, which is mostly privatised, and on voluntary sector organisations, which is “soft” privatisation.
When you count those in, 21% (£56,510,000) of the Clinical Commissioning Group’s budget goes on non-NHS providers.
Continue readingCalderdale NUT are hosting two Education Question Time events in the Halifax and Calder Valley constituencies in the run up to the general election. They are free events, but tickets must be booked in advance at http://ticketsource.co.uk/calderdalenut and are limited to two tickets per booking.
All declared candidates have been invited. Currently this is James Baker LIB, Holly Lynch LAB, Chris Pearson CON for Halifax, and Janet Battye LIB, Josh Fenton-Glynn LAB, and Rob Holden IND Craig Whittaker CON, Kieran Turner GREEN for Calder Valley. Continue reading
Calder Valley constituents have been trying to find out about progress with the West Yorkshire Police criminal investigation into an allegation of financial irregularity on the part of Calderdale Conservatives Association. The investigation, which related to Craig Whittaker’s 2015 General Election expenses, was launched a year ago in May 2016. Continue reading
Following an unannounced visit by Climate Crime Unit Investigators on April 6th, the managing director of Weir Minerals in Todmorden has agreed to ask Weir Head Office whether the company warns shareholders of the risk attached to the Weir’s substantial investments in the fossil fuel industry, and if they have any plans for divesting from fossil fuels. Continue reading
If you are registered with Hebden Bridge Group Practice and agree with this letter, please sign your name in the comments box – or email it if you don’t want to be publicly identified. I will add your names to the letter and deliver it to the GP surgery in a few days.
Open Letter
Dear Practice Manager and GPs
A number of patients at the Valley Road GP surgery have found that when they phone the practice for an urgent appointment they are told to call 111, who, after asking the 20 or so questions on their script, will then send a report to the GP surgery, which will then decide if a doctor will call them or see them.
This is making people very cross and anxious as often they are people with ongoing health problems who know that they need to be seen at the GP surgery. Continue reading
Hebden Bridge Group Practice and other GP practices in Calderdale use an electronic patient data system called TPP SystmOne that has an “enhanced data sharing” system that shares confidential patient data outside the GP practice eg with hospitals, care homes and community services.
Flaws in the system mean data protection is being breached as the sharing system gives access to our shared data to thousands of “authorised users” within the NHS, which is not what is supposed to happen. It should just go to whatever other NHS departments are treating you, in addition to your GP.
Update 13.10.208 TPP SystmOne made changes to its data sharing functionality in early 2018 and NHS England and NHS Digital sent these recommendations to GPs and asked them all to carry them out asap. In March 2019 the Information Commissioner’s Office stated the issue had been resolved to its satisfaction.
“Get Your Fracking Hands Off Ryedale” was the message from the Frackfree Planet picket outside the Hebden Bridge branch of Barclays Bank on Wednesday 22nd February.
Calderdale members of Frackfree Planet handed out leaflets to Barclays Bank customers and passers by, to alert them to Barclays’ ownership of Third Energy, the company that plans to frack at Kirkby Misperton In North Yorkshire. Continue reading
Bootham Park Hospital was closed at the end of September 2015 on the sudden instruction of the Care Quality Commission, following their unannounced inspection five days before the contract for running the hospital was due to be taken up by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys mental health trust.
The inspection was apparently triggered by whistle-blowing from a ward manager who used to work for the Care Quality Commission.
Despite massive public opposition to the hurried closure – and an assurance to the Care Quality Commission from the head of Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys mental health trust that they had £2m earmarked for fixing the maintenance problems that were the reason for closing Bootham Park Hospital – the Care Quality Commission refused to budge.
None of this story makes any obvious sense. So what’s been going on?
Do fast-revolving doors between key public organisations and private health sector companies create a shadow NHS, where decisions are made in the interests of profit not patients? Continue reading
