01/11/2013 Midlands Today

changes to grading and assessment. That is all

Hello and welcome to Midlands Today. The headlines tonight: Patients in

danger ` the hospital which failed to give insulin to a diabetic

patient. We ask why a rising number of

diabetes sufferers routinely miss some of their medication whilst in

hospital. Also tonight: Baby Jade, named after the dog who found her

abandoned in a park, police urge her mother to get in touch.

We will continue to search for the mother.

Time for your close up. The mysterious world of our waterways

uncovered with fishcam. Treading the footsteps of the Peaky

Blinders, a tour following the success of the BBC drama.

Well we've got bonfires and Diwali this weekend but will those

fireworks go off with a bang, or will the weather make it more of a

damp squib? Find out later. Good evening. A diabetic patient in

Shropshire nearly died after hospital staff failed to give her

insulin. It follows the deaths of two other diabetics in Midlands

hospitals since 2007. In this country, three million people are

living with diabetes and almost a million more have the condition, but

are undiagnosed. The charity, Diabetes UK, claims 40 per cent of

sufferers experience at least one mistake in their medication whenever

they're in hospital. Here's our health correspondent, Michele

Paduano. Margaret Thorpe can't speak up for

herself. She has dementia. She also has an attentive husband so when she

was admitted at midnight to the Royal Shrewsbury hospital last

month, he gave her insulin details to the Dr. 16 hours later, he asked

a nurse on the ward about her insulin. He says staff there were

unaware. When Margaret was tested her blood sugar was high. If we had

not picked it up that afternoon market would have gone into a coma.

`` maggots would have gone into a coma stop `` Margaret would have

gone into a coma. The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital claims

the Dr informed the ward that she required insulin but not how much.

Mr Thorpe claims the details were on the ward.

There have been two high profile cases in the last six years where

diabetic patients have died in similar circumstances.

The family of 55`year`old Margaret Pitt received a large pay`out

because in 2010 the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch failed to

monitor her. And three years earlier, Ron Street lost his friend,

Gill Astbury after Stafford Hospital neglected to give her insulin. He's

stunned it could happen again. Needless loss of life. Something has

to be done to stop this sort of thing happening. A survey carried

out last year shows how dangerous it can be for diabetics. 20% of all

patients had an episode of low blood sugar. 40% had at least one

medication error. I want to avoid this happening again to someone

else. I am concerned that next time it would be a fatality.

I'm joined now by Ken Taylor, a consultant and diabetes specialist.

How much of a cause for concern should these incidents be for

diabetic patients? They are a major cause of concern

for us all. Diabetics want to have confidence when they go into

hospital but they will be properly looked after. Up to 20% of the

inpatients and English hospitals have diabetes. A survey recently

showed that figure was 27%. The difference is with the ethnic mix of

the population. You think it would be easy to put a note on that the

patient is diabetic. What is going wrong which are there is an

initiative to get all staff asking the question could this person have

diabetes. There are some problems. There is a feeling these days within

management circles that diabetes can be entirely managed in primary care.

Consequently, with the pressures on finances in the NHS, it has led to

diabetes specialist nurses not being replaced when they are leaving.

Given the fact that money is tight and staff numbers are a challenge

what can be done to prevent diabetic patients dying? The plan is to have

a diabetes champion on every ward. This is a qualified nurse would not

be an expert in diabetes, but would have some training and know the

importance of administering insulin to a patient that has had something

to eat and checking the blood glucose and if she felt things were

getting out of control contacting the diabetes. That needs to be

implemented in every inpatient ward in every hospital in the country.

Coming up later in the programme: More than just Two Tone, celebrating

Coventry's music heritage in a new museum.

The newborn baby abandoned in a Birmingham park yesterday has been

called Jade ` after the Alsatian dog which found her. But there's still

no sign of her mother and police have again asked for her to come

forward. Sarah Falkland is outside Police HQ for us tonight. Sarah what

can you tell us about Jade tonight? She is in hospital. She is getting

round the clock care. She is very healthy. She was found yesterday

afternoon by this dog called Jade who literally sniffed her out in

that park yesterday. The owner then found the baby wrapped in a towel in

a plastic bag. If the baby had been left for an hour or two longer. Us

see the consequences could have been brutal. `` Doctors say the

consequences could have been fatal. We think the baby was therefore less

than 30 minutes. That gives us an area we can look for us to where the

pregnancy might have happened and the Labour might have happened.

Anyone who has any information please come forward. What else have

the police had to say? They are carrying out DNA checks on the towel

and the bag. That'll only leads to people if they have a criminal

record. If you saw our bag like this please get in touch. They have also

renewed calls for the mother of Jade to get in touch and seek medical

help. It is a sign of society today. Just come forward. I feel sorry for

the girl. Whatever has happened has happened. Face it. In cases of

abandoned a Beasley is the mothers do eventually come forward, it just

takes a bit of time. `` in cases of abandoned the fees than mothers do

eventually come forward. A former Labour councillor's been

jailed for 16 months for fraudulently taking ?10,000 of party

funds. Andy Lilley was the Treasurer of Stoke on Trent MP Tristram Hunt's

constituency party. Sentencing him, the judge said he had no alternative

but to send him to jail because, "a clear message has to be sent out."

Our Staffordshire reporter Liz Copper was in court.

Andy Lilley, a man who the court heard had, "betrayed the trust and

confidence" of the political party he'd been a member of." He pleaded

guilty to one count of fraud and one of false accounting. He'd

transferred ?10,000 of Labour party funds to his own accounts.

The fraud was taking place during the General Election campaign, when

Tristram Hunt was elected to the Stoke Central seat. Tonight Dr Hunt

has said he's, "very satisfied that justice has been done in this

unpleasant and unfortunate case. " A former leader of Stoke on Trent City

Council says attempts were made at a constituency party meeting to report

the wrongdoing. The constituency Labour Party became

aware of these thefts in February 2000 and ten at the Labour Party

nationally were made aware of it. The Labour Party says it did not

discover the fraud until this year. In his defence he was described as a

broken man. Sentencing Andy Lilley the judge said a clear message had

to be sent out. A senior Liberal Democrat has called

for an end to the vertical mixed messages on HS2.

Here is our Political Editor. Does this suggest that things have

changed around the dynamics of HS2? Ministers are now emboldened to

press ahead with this. We would be letting down the people

of the West Midlands and letting down industry if we were to reject

HS2. It is so important. We need to redistribute that balance. It is not

all about London. It is about the Midlands and the North of England.

We have got to bring prosperity to those areas.

HS2 continues to divide opinion. I was talking to a Green Party

councillor who feels the direction of travel as far as investment is

concerned is the other way round. She feels it. Investment away from

this area towards the capital. With detailed legislation due next

year how do you assess the political prospects?

This book has reinforced the consensus at the top of British

optics. It reinforces the view that extent to which Parliament is out of

touch according to opponents. The debate will probably move

towards compensation payments. They will be more on this and much else

decides in the Sunday Politics this weekend.

Rivers are a vital part of the Midlands landscape, but how much do

we know about what goes on under the surface? The Environment Agency is

using special underwater cameras linked to computers to track fish up

and down rivers in the Midlands. And as our Environment Correspondent

David Gregory`Kumar discovered, they're providing new information

about a previously mysterious world. A swirl of minnows, perch and dace

in the evening. Even a predatory pike. And all swimming up hill and

over a weir. All thanks to an ingenious solution to manmade

obstacles like weirs ` the fishpass. You have got the two ball at either

side. Then there are battles. That slows the watered`down to allow the

fresh to move down. But this fishpass is rather special.

To check it's working the Environment Agency have installed a

fishcam. It tells us about the species. It tells us how many fish

are passing up and down through the past. We can make that data such as

temperature and flow so we can get an idea of migration behaviour.

You might think a river looks empty but thanks to the camera we can see

it's teeming with life ` perch, dace, pike and minnows passing

through. And even an otter. That was the best day at work ever. That sort

of prodigious not been seen before. It was really exciting to see it.

Fish needs to move upstream to breed and defeat. They also need to escape

pollution. Of course there's plenty of work to

keep all this technology clean and working underwater for a year. But

the result provides huge amounts of new information on our rivers.

And David's here with us now, how hard is it for our fish to move up

and down our rivers? It's really hard although it is

getting better. There are thousands of manmade obstacles all over our

rivers. Making life hard for fish. It's not just the famous species

like salmon and eels that need to move up big rivers like the Severn.

Freshwater fish migrate too. So if you can't remove a weir then putting

in a fish pass is often the answer to increasing this movement. And

although they look simple there's a lot of design involved with a fish

pass, the slope involved, the shape of the entrance. And that's why the

camera is so useful because it allows us to make sure we've got it

right. As we saw the whole system doesn't just produce this video. It

also counts the fish going up and down. And the Environment Agency can

use computer software to work out the likely weight of the fish

passing through. It also catches some nice behaviour, this pike is

actually probably using the camera tunnel as cover for its hunting.

Which seems to work since not long after it's back this time it has an

unlucky perch in its mouth. Now this weekend could be a really

good one to see our most spectacular migratory fish making their way

upriver ` the salmon. Although they will use a fish pass they will still

try the more dramatic way to get over a weir first. Salmon love dull

grey skies with a falling flood water level. As the visibility

improves within the water the salmon begin to jump ` which means this

weekend should be ideal. Tewkesbury, Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Worcester all

have weirs where you have a good chance of seeing some action. We've

put the exact locations and more information online at

facebook.com/midlandstoday. This is our top story tonight:

Patients in danger ` the hospital which failed to give insulin to a

diabetic patient. Your detailed weather forecast to

come shortly with Rebecca. Also in tonight's programme: Suffering from

a severe bout of homesickness, how Villa are having more luck on the

road. And following in the footsteps of

the Peaky Blinders, a new tour of dramatic Digbeth.

A new museum celebrating Coventry's music history opens this weekend. It

tells the story of the city's success, from Frank Ifield to The

Enemy and of course Two Tone. Ben Sidwell's at the museum now. There

are flashing lights in this report. Ben, Coventry's really proud of its

music isn't it? You might remember one of these

booths. That's what this place is about.

Let us speak to the man who has created this. Why have you done

this? Coventry has a fantastic musical story to tell and now we

have a place we can tell it. Liverpool goes on about the Beatles,

but there are not many other places in this country that are as proud as

Coventry of their musicians. So many people want to see where it

all began. We have got lots of musical genres abusing this treaty.

`` lots of musical genres and musical history here.

What you make of it? It is brilliant. Jets can find out where

it has all come from. It officially opens to the public on Sunday. It is

well worth a look around. Dan's here with the sport and Villa

on the road this weekend. So far this season they've won seven

points away and only three points at home. No wonder Aston Villa aren't

fazed by tomorrow's trip to West Ham. But many supporters are worried

by their team's poor form at Villa Park. So Ian Winter met up with the

boss, Paul Lambert at the club's open training session this week.

The bald eagle has landed. National bird of the USA. It loves swooping

on salmon. And is rarely seen at Villa Park. Likewise the vulture.

Almost as rare as home victories in the top flight.

Since Paul Lambert took charge, Villa have played 25 Premier League

games in front of their own fans. They've won only six, they've drawn

five, they've lost 14. And that's produced just 23 points from a

possible 75. Villa park is not exactly a

fortress. We have two gets the home form better. That is not rocket

science. You are off to West Ham on Saturday. Another hard game.

This week, thousands of Villa fans, most of them youngsters enjoying

half`term, turned out to watch an open training session. And for many,

it's no mystery why their favourite team is finding it so hard to win at

home. I fancy as more away than we do that home. They are too nervous.

We need the crowd on our side. They need to tighten up their defence and

get more experience in the side. Give him until Christmas. There are

lots of young players in the team as well. You need leaders to go out

there and set an example. Tomorrow, Villa fly south in search

of victory at West Ham. So Villa's home record not great but

Britain's cyclists love racing at home and there's been early success

at the World Cup in Manchester. Yes the men's sprint team including

Staffordshire's Kian Emadi are through to the bronze medal race.

They were third fastest in qualifying this afternoon and

they'll race New Zealand this evening. And tomorrow Bromsgrove's

Jess Varnish is in action. Most people remember Jess for being

disqualified in the women's team sprint at London 2012 along with

Victoria Pendleton. Well she's also missed most of this year with a back

injury. But now she's back and tomorrow she races in the individual

sprint. There's live coverage on the BBC via the Red Button this weekend.

The brutal Birmingham gangs which inspired the hit BBC drama Peaky

Blinders have now given rise to a new walking tour of the city. The

walks run by community volunteers are looking to capitalise on the

popularity of the series. Elizabeth Glinka reports.

Peaky Blinders ` audiences loved the its dark cinematic style. And that's

inspired Digbeth resident Rosie Pocklington to come up with a tour

taking people to some of the sites that were once overrun with

dangerous gangsters. This is the start of the tour. It was an

incident at this pub that was reported in the press. Who were the

Peaky Blinders? They had a particular way of tracing.

The Peaky Blinders series set in the heart of Birmingham has been a hit

with viewers pulling in 2.4 million viewers every week with much of the

action taking place at the Garrison pub. Musician Danny Cannon, who can

be heard singing in this scene, also advised the film makers on local

details and says the drama has raised the city's profile. People

were not aware of the fact that this was going on in Birmingham. It was

going in Chicago and London. People knew about that. This series has

shown people what it was like. This is how it was. Peaky Blinders has

got people interested in this area and this period of history.

The tours get underway this weekend ` and with the news that a second

series has now been commissioned interest in Birmingham and its

violent past looks set to rise. Elizabeth Glinka, BBC Midlands Today

Birmingham. . If you've got a bonfire party to

go to this weekend you'll be keen to know what the weather is going to be

like. Rebecca has the forecast. know what the weather

It is not the optimum weather to be heading out to a firework display.

Plenty of rain. Wet and windy this weekend. Strong winds to contend

with tomorrow. But conditions will be better I Sunday. This blanket of

cloud has been sitting over us today. A band of rain in the centre

of the region. Battles they met us until tomorrow morning. We could see

20 millimetres of rainfall by tomorrow. That is helping

temperatures overnight. It will be a dull, damp start to Saturday. Then

we had low pressure. Rain through the day tomorrow. It will feel cold

with the wind. Gasps of up to 40 mph tomorrow night. It will be wet

overnight. Most of the rain will be confined to the North of the

Midlands. Further South it will create up. Temperatures will fall

away. A cold start to Sunday, but a much better day. The Sun will come

out at times. There will be the odd shower here and there. It is staying

settled three to Monday. The rain is backed by Tuesday.

settled three to Monday. The Tonight's headlines from the BBC:

The biggest reform to GCSE's in England for a generation ` starting

with Maths and English. Patients in danger ` the hospital

which failed to give a diabetic patient insulin.

Congratulations to BBC Coventry and Warwickshire which won an award for

their campaign following job`seekers.

That was the Midlands Today. We'll be back at ten o'clock. Have a great

evening. Goodbye.