Britcliffe Monthly

[SPUGGIE J]

Will he or wont he? Comeon Ralph put your arguments for the present council up for debate. Or are you scared?

[g jones]

Originally Posted by ralph

Wardens ? PCSOs ? Whatever happened to proper police personnel ? Surely after almost 10 years in office a LABOUR GOVERNMENT could at least give us proper front line services ? Plenty of funding for troops in Iraq but nowt for frightened, intimidated old dears in Accy. Friend Jones seems willing to make feeble excuses and offer platitudes, but no real criticism of his own Party, whose Government is the real culprit.

The Labour Government has dramatically increased the number of police officers. We have one in Peel and his name is PC Pearson. We never had a local bobby under the Tories.

However good or bad the Government has done, Britain and Hyndburn has benefited. New health centres, vastly redced waiting lists, better medicines and treatments available. Stable economy, growth rates the envy of europe. £millions pumped in to Hyndburn. Nearly every school with upgraded facilities, smaller class sizes, better childcare facilities.. Minimum wage for poor people. I am sure Greg could carry on the things that seem easily forgotten but have reallly made a difference to a lot of people.

I know if I was a Tory in opposition, I would see it as my duty to challange the Goverment at every point, point out what hasnt been done (dentists, media, efficient use of public money, PFI, wealth gap, means testing, pensions, religion, war etc..). Thats democracy, you will always have two lists. The dogmatic see one list, the open minded two.

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by ralph

Wardens ? PCSOs ? Whatever happened to proper police personnel ? Surely after almost 10 years in office a LABOUR GOVERNMENT could at least give us proper front line services ? Plenty of funding for troops in Iraq but nowt for frightened, intimidated old dears in Accy. Friend Jones seems willing to make feeble excuses and offer platitudes, but no real criticism of his own Party, whose Government is the real culprit.

Everyone has this rose tinted view of bobbies on the beat and believe that the good old days were best when PC Bobby and and his mate used to patrol the streets and stop for a chat and a cup of tea with the neighbours. That was before the population explosion of the 60s and 70s and the influx of foreign labour. If the police were sat in someone's house having a cup of tea from morning till night they'd never get anything done.

So, life has moved on. We do have two very nice bobbies who work in Oswaldtwistle, PC Steve O'Boyle and his colleague who's name temporarily escapes me. They can be contacted easily and will come out to investigate any disturbance or crime - they are also very approachable if seen in the street. They cover a large area so they are mostly out and about in their car but they do stop and they do get to know people.

If the Community Wardens and PCSOs are brought in this presence on the streets would increase immensely and would be more consistent and frequent.


As for the war - don't forget that the Conservative MPs voted for it as well. Everyone blames it on Tony Blair and Labour but the only ones that actually opposed it were the Lib Dems. And the Conservatives took us into a few dubious conflicts as well.

[wkd_one]

Originally Posted by g jones

However good or bad the Government has done, Britain and Hyndburn has benefited. New health centres, vastly redced waiting lists, better medicines and treatments available.

what a load of crap, have you read the papers lately ..?

13 thousand healthcare workers to loose their jobs

and as for hyndburn benefiting from been under a labour government accrington victoria hospital has now been reduced to barely been able to muster up a plaster to treat a scratched finger

the next time i have to wait over 1 hour to get my baby taken to hospital in blackburn i will be thinking of what labour has done for me

no need to mention dentists ime sure there are many members and viewers of this site sat here with tooth ache or tooth related problems waiting to be seen by a dentist , i also bet there are many people sat with so called TEMPORARY fillings in their mouths that have been there for many months also because they cant get a dentist to treat them and the emergency dentists only does patch up work/emergency work

please dont come here trying to tell us that we in hyndburn and the rest of britain is so much better of with health care under labour because it simply isnt true , statistics can be made to look good but its what the every day person actualy sees that convinces them somthing is getting better and i personaly dont see much happening

edit:

i would have a lot more respect for a labour candidate that spoke about how things truely are than a labour candidate that spouted tony blairs bull

like many labour voters i will continue to vote labour because its a case of better the devil you know rather than labour are doing a good job but the day will come when the lack of action and costant lies by the present govenment will not be tolerated and labour will be out , the torys found this out too late and people voted them out eventualy and if tony blair dosnt get his act together soon labour will be out as well

ps:

ime not too happy about the extra 5p your leader has put on petrol either but thats another topic altogether

[Neil]

Originally Posted by wkd_one

like many labour voters i will continue to vote labour because its a case of better the devil you know rather than labour are doing a good job but the day will come when the lack of action and costant lies by the present govenment will not be tolerated and labour will be out

So you think that Labour are not doing a good job of running the country but yet you will still vote for them. Sounds like sheep syndrome to me - voting for them because everyone else is. You will vote Labour even though by your own statement they constantly lie to you. Your comment also suggests that you do not think Labour are doing a good job. I don't know what selection criteria you use when voting but I think you should take a step back and decide on a new method.

You also blame Labour for the current NHS problems and rise in petrol prices.

I think the best bit is that you think Tony Blair talks bull****

[wkd_one]

lets face it neil no matter who is in charge they will balls it up even more and blame their predecessors

thats why i stick to voteing labour , although they mess up , lie and tax us to the hilt until their is a better option i dont see switching parties doing anything but putting a different set of incompitants in charge and besides if labour stay in charge there must come a time when they can no longer blame the torys for all the mess they fail to sort out

only last week it was all over the news how many voters were so fed up with the three main parties that they were preppared to vote for the BNP and they predicted that there would be an inrease in BNP seats which i find a lot more less appealing than what i do with my vote

anyway how i choose to or how i decide my vote isnt the issue i was merely pointing out how wrong it was to say hyndburn has benefited health care wise under a labour govenment because in my opinion it hasnt

have you tried getting a doctor out to an ill child recently , i have and was told to make my way to blackburn , luckily i had the taxi fare to do this as it was after the buses had stopped running but i can bet there are many families out there who cant afford the nearly £10 each way trip to take their child to a doctor in Blackburn at queens park hospital

if labour want to show that they are helping hyndburn how about putting some money back into accrington victoria hospital so that people in clayton,accrington,baxenden and osswaldtwistle have somewhere nearer to home to get treatment after 9pm

mind you it would be just as quick to get to accy victoria as it would be to get to queens park for people in ossy

[Greg Pope]

Hey guys, it's bad enough getting blamed for the stuff I've done (voting for the war in Iraq, for example) without getting blamed for the stuff I haven't done! Just a couple of facts: firstly, the closures at Accy Vic took place under the previous Conservative Government, the most recent being the closure of the maternity unit in 1994. By next year spending on the NHS will have triple under Labour - it's not perfect I know, but important things like waiting times for surgery are miles shorter than in 1997. And we actually have more police in Lancashire than ever; we are supplementing them with about 30 PCSOs in Hyndburn (and if Labour win on 4th May an extra 24 wardens) because we think that this additional uniformed presence makes our streets safer.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I think that in the local elections you should vote for the person who YOU feel will do most for your OWN local area......National politics are a different ball game altogether.

What I find irritating about National politics is that the parties.....all of them...expend so much energy in name calling and trying to bring their fellow politicians into disrepute....and then they probably go to the bar and have a gin and tonic with one another. I wish the energy expended in name calling could be put to better use in solving the problems that this country has. Immigration.....Yob culture, Lawlessness and a judicial system that is risable.

[wkd_one]

fair comment about the closure of accy victoria gregg but even after the closure of the maternity ward you could still be treated at accident and emergency any time of the night but now it is mainly for minor injuries and only up until 9pm

we hear all the time how money is been poured into the NHS but what people go off is what they can see happening around them and their own personal experiences of the NHS

i know there is a new medical center been built where broughtons used to be on church street but the understanding i have of that so far is that the doctors from peel house medical center are been moved there and it is also going to be some sort of clinic but i have not heard anything about what time it will be closing or what other facilities are going to be available

[accymel]

Talking of NHS, which will soon be myth to future generations, but whats happening about the NHS dental crisis - some of us still without dental treatment more shockingly many children in the borough including mine & what about the messing about with GP surgeries & the confusion with all changes to appointments only - in my surgery im struggling to get a non emergency appointment for my son who needs a GP referral, told to ring after 8am - phone constantly engaged then when i do get through - no appointments left, they wont pre book me an appointment as they are taking daily appointments only even after explaining the reason im getting nowhere, is there any hardship making an appointment for another day after school or outside busy surgery appointments so my son can be referred to a neccessary nhs service!!! Apparently this is the norm with some GP surgeries locally.

I hope this should resolve in the next few years because my son will need a definate referral back to his consultant for a much needed operation then..... i dont want to have the same fiasco im having now.

[lindsay ormerod]

I very nearly stood as a labour Councillor a few years ago and now I am glad I didn't as I couldn't just "explain" away the reason why school age children are going without NHS dental care. I would also struggle with the idea that Hyndburn is a safer place to live and work after having my store robbed over the weekend and feeling like my staff are defending the Royal Mint ;it's a dvd store for God's sake!

[wkd_one]

perhaps when people can actualy see changes been made opinions may change , i would say there is yet a lot of work to be done until labour can boast about how things are improved

maybe we will see the improvements sooner than we think as all this extra tax on petrol and cigrettes must be going somwhere

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Greg Pope

By next year spending on the NHS will have triple under Labour - it's not perfect I know

Greg, I am sure that I don't need to point out to you that just throwing money at something does not make it work any better. I firmly believe the main problem with the NHS is the way it is managed from the top down - I think many of the staff are incompetent but that is because they are allowed to be by their superiors ( for want of a better word). Explain to me why consultants are allowed to use NHS hospitals to see private patients? They could be seeing NHS patients in that time and reduce waiting list's. I suspect they pay something to the hospital for the services used. I bet they don'y pay for some of their secretary's wages. I think that is poor management of hospital time and resources.

I have a little (probably long) example for you.
I had an appointment last wednesday with my consultant following an operation I had 12 months ago. The last time I saw him he wanted to see me in 4 weeks but due to appointments it ended up being 6 or 7. I walked into the room to find the wrong doctor sat in the chair. No explanation as to where my consultant was. He basicly asked me why I was there. I explained that after surgery, the results had been superb but the original problem had slowly started to return and, at my last appointent my medication had been changed as a trial. I told him that it was no better and possibly even worse than the original medication. At this he said he did not now what to do. He asked me if my consultant had said what he was going to do if I was no better and was he going to operate again. That is when I told him that I was very upset that I had wasted my time and taken time of work to go to hospital and waste the Doctors time and the Nurses time and the hospital resources to see a man who could do nothing without speaking to my consultant who had decided to take annual leave when he was supposed to be in clinic all day. I asked how many other people had wasted their time that day. The outcome of all this waste of NHS time and money as well as my time is that I have another appointment with my consultant on thursday morning. It will be rather interesting if my consultant is not there. After all his secretary thinks he will be so he can't be on leave still. I would be interested to know how many days annual leave a consultant gets, maybe somebody knows.

So throwing money at the NHS is not improving much. It is not making doctors and nurses wash their hands, although when I was in the doctors did and the nurses did not. All this money did not put my daughter in an isolation ward so she did not infect other poorly children when she was in hospital recently. Infact all this extra money did not even make anyone clean the floor when she was sick all over it.

Please explain to us Greg what THREE TIMES as much money has actually done to reduce MRSA in our hospitals and improve services in general. My mother in law recently had her operation cancelled because there was no bed for her. This was an operation booked months ago, how can that happen? You would not be impressed if you had your holiday cancelled because they had no plane to take you. We all know that no bed really means no staff. What has THREE TIMES as much money done to increase staffing levels?

[Gayle]

Can I just point out that both Cllr Britcliffe and I are standing for local election. Whilst I think it's important that we discuss things like the NHS and dentists etc., I have to stress that even if elected I would have little or no influence over any of these issues.

I am standing for local issues in my local ward and I am worried about the confusion discussions over national issues have on the local elections.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Neil.....Having worked in the NHS, I can tell you that a lot of money has been wasted in trying to meet governments ever changing targets. They have continually promised the electorate things that they had no idea how to provide.....so managers were given the task of deciding how the provision of these services would be accomplished......you would just get used to one demand and then another one would follow swiftly on its heels......so instead of managing services, managers were playing catch up to manage targets.
Patients are not better cared for because of this political meddling...in fact in some cases patients with clinical needs were...shall we say 'neglected' so that targets could be met...bunions and tonsils treated instead of heart ops (OK that is a bit of a stark contrast - but you get my drift)?