by Paul Scully | Feb 9, 2015 | News, News |
When I’m out and about speaking to residents, the future of St Helier comes out time and time again as the main local issue of concern and rightly so. I have been volunteering at the hospital feeding patients on the stroke ward on Friday lunchtimes. Walking around the hospital on a regular basis, talking to staff and patients has given me an amazing insight into the hospital and its inner workings.
My two children were born in St Helier 22 and 17 years ago. I remember clear as day, the amazing care that they had, both being born prematurely. A few years’ later my son was playing rugby in a taster session at Sutton Arena. He didn’t have to go very far to get his thumb pulled back into place having dislocated it minutes into the session. Fast forwarding to just last year, I went to A&E three times, once when I drove my mother after she fell in her sheltered accommodation and an ambulance wouldn’t come for some time, another when my wife stood on a six-inch rusty spike left sticking up on open ground in Roundshaw. Even now that makes me squirm just writing it.
I remember two particular thoughts at the time of those last two examples. Firstly how glad I was that I didn’t have to get my mother to St George’s rather than St Helier, close to my home in Carshalton and noting the doubling of the journey time when I had to take her just three days later to a follow-up appointment at St George’s in Tooting. Then when sitting with my wife who was writhing in agony with her Wellington boot left on so as not to dislodge anything and the spike still running through her foot, looking around and realising that few if any other patients appeared to have had an accident or looked as though their visit was an emergency.
When local clinicians first decided to look at reviewing A&E and Maternity services three years ago, I set up a website ‘Here for St Helier’ encouraging people to sign the petition already started by the Sutton Guardian. I figured that this needed to be a grassroots-led campaign that should not be politicised and our local paper was best placed to lead on this. Three years later, our hospital is in a better place but I still believe that it is the wider community that has to speak out en masse to ensure that our hospital remains intact and gets the investment that it needs. Over the last couple of decades, St Helier has been used as a political football, a campaign tool. It’s more than that. It’s our bedrock. St Helier has always been there for us; we need to be there for St Helier.
We have had politicians trying to save the hospital for years, mainly when it didn’t need saving, not unlike an overeager boy scout trying to help an elderly person across a road when they didn’t want to cross in the first place. That suited politicians who were looking at which parts of the borough they could attract votes. During that time, Sutton Hospital in the south of Sutton was left denuded with services transferred to St Helier. Now Sutton Hospital is to join the Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children in Carshalton Beeches and Carshalton War Memorial Hospital on the list of local healthcare facilities that we have lost forever, although Queen Mary’s was shoe-horned onto the St Helier site.
Recently we have seen a slew of petitions calling for St Helier to be saved from the Better Services, Better Value (BSBV) review. All of them called for the right thing to be done, one big one compiled by our local MPs has not seen the light of day having not been presented to anyone in order to be able to do any saving. Some residents have drawn the conclusion that this was just to collect people’s personal data, rather than its stated purpose. During this time, the £219m earmarked to rebuild Ferguson House was redirected, presumably to an area where they had a firmer idea of what kind of hospital they wanted to build.
There is no doubt that BSBV was a costly mistake. We must fight to keep these essential services here at St Helier and I will fight tooth and nail to keep them. But I will do it with and alongside residents. Yes, MPs are community leaders and have influence, but our NHS should not be abused for the sake of politics. I worry when I see campaigning on local healthcare services splinter into political dogmatic discussions about ‘privatisation’, the effect on the NHS of TTIP and other points of that type. It’s absolutely right that those matters are debated but mixing them up with the future of our particular hospital in the context of the BSBV review is a huge strategic mistake and runs the risk of a disjointed community campaign against a highly organised approach by clinicians, GPs and administrators.
In summary, I will fight to protect healthcare services at St Helier, support the Hospital Trust’s plan to get them back on a surer financial footing, campaign for greater capital investment to update our treasured hospital and won’t run unnecessary campaigns that risk undermining the hospital and demoralising NHS staff.
by Paul Scully | Feb 3, 2015 | News, News |
I’m delighted to have been made a Patron of the Fair Votes for All campaign, which calls for English votes for English issues to be introduced into the House of Commons as soon as possible.
This is a matter of fairness for people in Sutton, Cheam & Worcester Park whose voice in Parliament is currently diluted by Scottish MPs. With more powers being devolved to Scotland following the independence referendum last year, it is not fair that Scottish MPs continue to determine issues that do not affect their constituents. We should be able to decide our own priorities in our classrooms and in our NHS. The SNP have already said that they will break the agreement that has been in place for years and vote on laws
I’m petitioning local people to gather support for this important campaign and hope that you will join me by can signing the petition here. You can also download petition sheets to print out and get your family and friends on board to show the government how strongly we feel that we need a fair system in Westminster. The Freepost address to return the sheets is shown at the bottom of each sheet. I’ve already submitted petition signatures from residents from both parliamentary constituencies in Sutton but there is still time to add your support.
Graham Stuart MP, Chairman of the Fair Votes for All campaign, has said to the local media: “I am glad to welcome Paul Scully as a Patron of the campaign. As more powers are handed over to the Scottish Parliament, this basic constitutional unfairness cannot be ignored any longer.” You can keep up with the latest from the campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
Petitions from some Sutton politicians have been seen as an exercise in gaining personal data without being presented to anyone. Please do read the data notice at the bottom and rest assured, any signatures collected will be presented to Parliament along with others from around the country as part of the Fair Votes for All campaign. Your voice will be heard.
by Paul Scully | Feb 3, 2015 | News, News |
I was lucky to catch Ray & Vi Donovan speak at a session held by at the Sutton Youth Centre this week. Ray & Vi set up the Chris Donovan Trust in memory of their son who was senselessly and brutally killed in 2001. Eleven years later they came face to face with the three young men who had been convicted of Chris’ murder. Ray & Vi’s retelling of the story was understandably raw and emotional as if it happened yesterday. Despite recounting their experience in prisons up and down the country, the audience could see the lasting hole in their life as a result of that evening 14 years ago, an evening made up of random chance decisions that set Chris walking up the pavement into the path of a 14-strong gang off their faces on drink and drugs and seeing Chris and his brother as an easy target for the violent acts that ensued.
The young people at the Youth Centre sat transfixed for an hour as they heard of the Donovan’s helplessness at the hospital, their anguish to hear that not only had their son died but his body was now the property of the coroner. Just as it seemed as it couldn’t get any worse, they discovered that they couldn’t bury Chris for another few weeks as the pathologist had to remove his brain to examine a particular enzyme to determine the exact cause of death. These months of hell would not have even entered the heads of the young men who stamped on Chris repeatedly and left him in the road to be run over by a car and carried forty feet. The years of prison and the effective removal of the remainder of their own teen years and twenties didn’t feature in their decision to run away shouting, “Leave him” after a neighbour had alerted the police.
Ray & Vi now travel around the country speaking about the benefits of restorative justice, a system designed to put the victim first. They met their son’s killers after they were released from prison, so having no effect on the length of the sentence. As well as giving them a sense of closure, their meetings with each of the killers gave those young men a chance to realise the effect of their crime, have an outlet for their remorse and start on a path of rehabilitation. Sentencing must always have an element of punishment but spending £40,000 each year per prisoner to lock them away from the world repeatedly after reoffending is impractical. The sensible long term approach must be to help prisoners turn their lives around through rehabilitation whilst serving the sentence that people would expect for the crime committed. It’s sensible that the government have made funding available to Police & Crime Commissioners to help deliver restorative justice over three years. Of course Ray & Vi’s work goes further than promoting restorative justice. The powerful retelling of their harrowing experience will surely have an effect on young people who may find themselves being pushed into joining a gang or committing a crime. They are constantly reminding people of the consequences of their actions beyond the intended victim; the ripple effect of their crime.
by Paul Scully | Nov 13, 2014 | News |
Precision Chiropractic based in Cheam have won the Sutton, Cheam & Worcester Park Shop of the Year competition that I’ve been running over the last few weeks. Precision topped the poll for the second time in a row having beaten off competition in 2013 as well.
Top 3
1. Precision Chiropractic, High Street, Cheam
2. Cheam Sports, Broadway, Cheam
3. Blue Chip Board Store, 94 Church Hill Road, Cheam
Hundreds of people showed their support for their local independent shops that add so much to our High Streets. There were a wide variety of businesses in the competition showing the variety that is needed to keep our retail areas alive.
As well as giving local retailers and their staff a little lift, it provides them with an opportunity to voice their views on the issues that affect them with parking ranking as the issue that affects them most. Although Precision isn’t what many would call a traditional shop, the business has brought many new customers to neighbouring businesses. It’s making connections in that way that will help our High Streets flourish.
Congratulations to Manny and Mary at Precision Chiropractic for their continuing success.
One lucky voter will be picked at random to win £100 to spend at the winning business, Precision Chiropractic.
by Paul Scully | Nov 5, 2014 | News |
Sutton council have announced their two favoured sites on which to build one or more secondary schools to meet the demand for local places. In addition to the Sutton Hospital site, the council have responded to my call for an overgrown artificial football pitch at Rosehill to be added to their considerations. Until now their long list of potential sites had been secret and were limited by the fact that private investors had bought up most of the best sites whilst the council parked the issue. As recently as this summer, the council were advertising for a company to take the football pitch on a long lease, whilst looking elsewhere for a school site.
The council’s own figures show that a new school is needed by 2017 with another required by 2020. The primary school place crisis that hit many London boroughs a few years ago was always going to develop into a severe issue at secondary school level. The one predictable constant is that school children get older, so local plans need to allow for such increased demand. The Conservative-led government has given the council around £50m over the last few years which has mainly gone on expanding existing primary and secondary schools but given the constraints of the existing plots of land and the fact that there is a point when schools get too big, the borough has reached a level where only new premises will do.
I am not against a school being built on Sutton Hospital but there are factors that need to be considered. When I surveyed residents around the Belmont area earlier in the year, some 70% of them preferred new healthcare facilities on that site rather than a school or housing. Not everyone will want to live close to a school wherever it is built, so from a strategic borough-wide view, the view of neighbours has to be balanced with those residents slightly further away from the site who need the school places, but it is always the decent thing to ask residents first. Sutton council does not own the site. The NHS will have to declare the site surplus to requirements which is likely to happen sometime in 2015 at the earliest as there are still healthcare services on site. The council will then have to find an estimated £5m to buy the site before any building can take place. Increased use of the site will require transport studies and changes to the road layout including the sloping Chiltern Road/Brighton Road junction.
We’ve been here before. I sat on the Project Board of the last secondary school to be built in the borough, Stanley Park High School. That was built on NHS land, the former Queen Mary’s Hospital for Children. I went into that process naively believing that with the local NHS Trust strapped for cash and the council awash with ‘Building Schools for the Future’ money that the last government wanted spending well ahead of the 2010 election, a deal between two public sector bodies could be struck quickly and efficiently. Not a chance! Protracted negotiations led to legal fees of around £1m – private sector lawyers earning good money from public sector inefficiency. The school opened 18 months late, almost solely as a result of the inability to secure the land. Despite the catchment area of the school meaning that more children would walk to the new school, a new road was built as part of planning conditions which runs south in the opposite direction to the catchment area at a further cost of £1m.
The Rosehill land is not without its challenges. The derelict artificial football pitch has roughly the same footprint as Greenshaw’s main building (so excluding the sixth form block). There is a former pitch and putt area adjacent to the pitch which is not used that could be incorporated into the design. The whole area is Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) which means that the council will have to apply to the Mayor for permission to build. They were happy to do so in order to build an incinerator in Beddington on MOL so we will see how that plays out. No-one wants to see parkland built on if there is an alternative but I can’t think of another option. Therefore access to a school on that site needs to have the minimum effect possible on the green space at the front of the school.
However there are significant advantages to this site. Sutton Common Station is close by and should the tram be extended to Sutton it is due to run past the front of the school, thus providing two new travel options. It is situated close to the area of highest demand for places and is close to Greenshaw, the school that is in pole position to be the sponsor of the new school which will be a Free School. The Sports Village next door to the plot have expressed a keen interest in developing a partnership with the new school for sports.
Feasibility studies will be carried out on both sites and are due to be completed by January 2015 with planning permission being sought in the summer. We have had secrecy up to now from the council so it is crucial that local residents are kepy informed, asked for their opinions and able to influence the decisions that need to be made. I am pleased that we are finally on a path to deliver what our children need, sufficient local school places to ensure that those children currently in year 4 can get an excellent secondary-level education here in Sutton. However I’ve seen these projects stall in the past so I will continue to push for action.
