Danger of Care Home Privitisation

Letter sent to press below by Cllr Teresa Murray

Dear Sir,

The concerns raised in the Messenger article about Friston House and Winchester house care homes provide us with a timely reminder about the dangers posed by the Medway Council Cabinet's proposals, currently out for public consultation, to privatise Robert Bean Lodge, Nelson Court and Platters Farm. These popular and high quality homes are owned by the council and while this is the case it's much easier for the standards of care they provide to be monitored.

As your article shows even though private homes are subject to inspection by the Care Standards Commision, many more of them fall below acceptable practice when compared to those in the public sector. This is because the only other monitoring private homes have is that by relatives of users and annual visits from the Council who fund places in the private sector too. As accountability in the private sector is less regulated many private homes refuse potential clients and their families the right to drop in unplanned when trying to choose a home.

In the course of the consultaion I have heard relatives say that that they were even refused visits to see their loved ones already in private homes, if they didn't call first to say they were coming. Those who work at private homes are just as kind and caring as those who work in our council homes but they are paid less and there are fewer of them, reducing the time they can spend with those they look after. This results in higher hospital admissions where the neglect resulting from lack of time causes more presssure sores and infections. The consultation meetings have been well attended and I have now lost count of the numbers of people at the meetings or who have contacted me separately ,who tell frightening and moving stories about the way their loved ones ,now comfortable in our council homes, have been treated in the private sector.

Their stories include poor hygeine,the eviction of patients whose condition worsens, bad food and lack of feeding, regimes with few meaningful activities for residents and constant staff turnover. Privatising these much loved homes in Medway will leave the council prey to the private sector, vulnerable to uncontrolled pricing of care and weakened in terms of being able to uphold a gold standard or secure a safe place when things in the private sector go wrong.

Even the Parliamentary Public Accounts committee has recently issued a report saying that it's hard for councils to control standards of care in the private sector and intend to issue guidelines for tightening things up. I hope that the Conservative Cabinet of Medway council will listen carefully on February 14th to what the consultation has told us all and keep the homes in public ownership. Why let a good thing go when we could build on our success?

Privatising the homes is short sighted and the savings resulting from doing so are anyway very unclear, our older people have worked for all of us, they deserve the very best we can provide.

Cllr Teresa Murray

Labour spokesperson on Medway council, Health and Social care.

Labour stand up for vulnerable

Guest article by Cllr Teresa Murray; Spokesperson for Health.

Teresa is responding the article in the Guardian yesterday about the leadership of Ed Miliband:

Saturday's interview with Ed Miliband portrayed him as the personable, determined leader we in the Labour Pary know him to be who won't be distracted by less confident Party technocrats who are losing their nerve.

We have to play a long game and as Polly Toynbee rightly says, there's no shortage of battles to fight while this old style Tory government do what they know best,attack the vulnerable.

Here in Medway we are fighting to save the only day centres left for elderly and disabled people.

The local Tory council are doing what Eric Pickles wants them to do, shutting down as many public services as possible before the next election in the hope that by then, voters will have forgotten what they did and be grateful for the inevitable tax cut in the pre election budget.

We have seen this before but it doesn't stop it hurting. Our centres, now under threat of closure or privatisation give therapy,hope and respite to those who have no other means of socialisation and no possibility of finding such facilities or friendship groups elsewhere.

These groups also face losing up to £70 per week in Benefits making it even harder for them to fund their limited activities if the centres close.

This is the real fight and the Labour Party is up for it.

Cllr Teresa Murray

Rochester East Ward

Cllr Teresa Murray Letter

The responses to the Boundary Commission have been well aired but one from the former Labour Parliamentary candidate for Rochester & Strood is particularly important.

It is worth remembering that the Medway Labour and Medway Liberal Democrat position is to effectively support the impartial recommendation of the Boundary Commission.

It is not seeking to make partisan gain; only the Conservatives are seeking to gerrymander wards.

Dear Editor,

Please add this to the Letters Page in the Medway Messenger.

I saw that in Friday’s Medway Messenger last week that a former Councillor, Mrs Goulden joined local Tories in rejecting the Electoral Boundary Commission proposals

What the Commission have suggested after working within the government’s guidelines, is that the centre of Chatham and Rochester are recombined as they used to be and that central Gillingham is put with Luton to make another town centre constituency.

It is difficult to see how this doesn’t make a good deal of sense.

Their proposals result in two strong constituencies in the centre of the Medway Towns recognising the heart of our urban areas.

The Boundary Commission could see how preposterous it is to stay with the present boundary where some of the centre parts of the Medway towns are combined with the village of Aylesford to form the Chatham and Aylesford constituency. Furthermore, the wards they want to move in the direction of the North Downs have common boundaries with Tonbridge and Malling.

Medway council have spent a lot of council tax payers’ money promoting the town centres of Medway, submitting an application for World Heritage Status and campaigning for a City of Medway.

Real Regeneration, so badly needed just now when unemployment is high and local businesses are suffering, depends on developing strong centres in Medway and renewing the old industrial unused sites.

The Labour party is in fact simply agreeing with the findings of the independent Boundary Commission whilst working to support people in the hearts our towns in their struggle to survive these difficult economic times.

Having more sensible parliamentary boundaries that recognise our historic identities won’t solve all of the problems but it will help potential investors and developers to understand where most people live and plan new infrastructure accordingly.

From

Cllr Teresa Murray

Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Rochester & Strood