Agenda

4.1    Cllr Dacres introduced Kathy Cruise from Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign.

4.2    Kathy is a nurse at Lewisham Hospital and an active member of the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign which started in 2012. Lewisham Council helped the campaign defeat Hunt’s plans twice, helping with legal fees to take the challenge to the High Court.

4.3    Despite this services are still not safe and there is a national march on 4^th March starting at Tavistock Square. Katy urged people to join in and support the NHS.

4.4    Part of the role of The Campaign is on-going vigilance regarding budgets. The Service needs an increase of about 4% per year to maintain current levels of service and the current government are increasing budgets by about 1% per year. This is leading to pressures such as the bed shortage that is currently hitting the headlines.

4.5    For example, Croydon Hospital is currently running at 99% beds full and hospitals usually run at 85% occupancy to allow for effective management of patients. This is very dangerous and there are special teams in each hospital trying to get beds emptied.

4.6.   The compound effect of the cuts is that there will be a £20 billion shortfall by 2020 and the effect is further compounded by the cuts in district nursing and social services, despite government policy advocating referral to this provision.       

Q.     How far is PFI part of the problem?

A.     It is a big part of it.

Q.     What could be done, could they be bought out?

A.     It could be or the companies could reduce the debt. The problem is that there is no ombudsman like you have for mis-sold mortgages.

Q.      Could there be extra taxation ring fenced to help fund health?

A.      Yes that is a good point but also the government should also ensure that big businesses pay their taxes.

There was a discussion on higher earnings tax payer who chose to opt out and have private healthcare, they are not using the NHS, however the private sector does not undertake training or invest in their staff and therefore acts as a drain on the NHS resources.

4.7    Privatisation is going on at rapid pace and means that we may end up with a two-tier system where you have to pay insurance as well.

4.8    The current Sustainability and Transformation Plan outlines a £1 billion cut in services for South East London. There are 44 areas and one is South East London which covers the six boroughs (Lewisham, Lambeth, Greenwich, Southwark, Bromley & Bexley) run by Our Healthier South East London.

4.9    This means that there will be £1 billion cut in the next 5 years which will mean the loss of a hospital.

Comment:   This does not take into consideration the level of population growth.

4.10  The next two public meetings are on 22^nd February and 22^nd March at Waldron Health Centre from 7.30pm.

4.11  Cllr Dacres added that it is not winter crisis it is the  ...  view the full agenda text for item 4.

5.1    Cllr Dacres introduced Helen Pritchard from Goldsmiths’ University who is part of a team of researchers who are working with residents to monitor air quality in the north of the borough.

5.2    Helen explained that air quality in London often breaches the World Health Organisation’s recommendations. The north of the borough also has a considerable amount of construction which adds further dust and particulates.

5.3    Her project is funded for a year. Residents are loaned a device that they have developed to monitor the particulate matter. The device then passes information to the monitoring station, which is the grey shed that is next to The Rose pub on New Cross Road.

5.4    The team work with the London Air Quality Network and the data can then be used to lobby the council and the GLA to take action.

5.6    There are five devices along New Cross Road, two at Goldsmiths and ten around Deptford. Participants can monitor pollution event as well as recording their own experience.

5.7    The team would be happy to run a workshop at the library if residents would like to be involved. This will help you to set up the device and understand your data.

Q.     Where are the two devices at Goldsmiths?

A.     One on the roadside and the other on the roof. All boxes are outside of buildings and we would welcome any ideas that people have.

5.8    Ideas included the Art Tower, schools and nurseries.

Q.     How do you get your data?

A.     You can link to the server via wi-fi and download your data. We can help to set this up and the data is owned by you.

Q.     What happens after the year is up?

A.     There is a resource implications but the team will handover if people want to keep their device. They will not last forever.

6.1    Having voted for the priorities for 2017-18, residents took part in a café conversation to feed in to the action plan.

6.2    The new priorities for New Cross are

·         Unemployment & skills development

·         Activities for older people & tackling social isolation

·         Housing developments & the built environment

·         Health, wellbeing & community safety

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6.3    The feedback from the café conversation is attached to the meeting notes.

7.1    There were no other community updates.

7.2    Cllr Dacres thanked everyone for attending and reminded them complete the feedback forms.

There being no other business, the meeting closed at 9.00pm with no declarations of interest.

Note: These are not verbatim minutes therefore questions and answers have been summarised.