31/10/2016 Inside Out East Midlands

Hello and welcome to conkers and the gloriously

autumnal National Forest.

Tonight - a plan to improve patient safety, or will stopping chhldren's

heart surgery in the East Mhdlands puts lives at risk?

We hear from NHS England and the specialists

on the front line.

The East Midlands will feel it closest to home,

but nationally children will die.

This is about ensuring high-quality care and safetx

of patients into the future.

Also tonight, the former gang member helping to tackle

grooming and drugs.

Basically, whoever her daughter s talking to is asking her to bring

illegal drugs across, and also bring the money as well.

And when clowning around for Halloween is no laughing matter.

It needs to stop, because I do honestly believe that somebody out

there will end up getting htrt, it will go too far.

The stories that matter closer to home.

I'm Lukwesa Burak and this is Inside Out for the East Lidlands.

First tonight, a bombshell no one was expecting - that's how bosses

at Leicester's Glenfield Hospital have described the latest plan

to stop children's heart surgery across the East Midlands.

Well, NHS England say that the plan will improve care right

across the country, but as Marie Ashby has been finding

out, staff on the front lind believe that the plan

will put more lives at risk.

Children's heart surgery in the East Midlands.

But for how much longer?

CHANTING "SAVE THE HEART UNHT".

Is time running out and what could that mean for patients?

They are endangering children's lives.

This is not a sound bite, this is not a cliche, this is a fact

We are very, very concerned.

This isn't about closure, this isn't about putting lives at risk,

this is about ensuring high,quality care and safety of

patients into the future.

The NHS boss in charge in Ldicester is now at odds with National Health

Service plans to stop children's heart surgery.

The judegement they've come to is the wrong one,

it's as simple as that.

There's no point in suggesthng that we're just having a minor

difference of opinion here.

And what could the impact be on a life-support

system known as ECMO?

Yes, East Midlands will feel it closest to home,

but nationally children will die.

At Glenfield Hospital, the ECMO team are on stand-by.

Are they landing at the EMA or Glenfield, please?

A baby boy, born 24 hours ago, is being brought from Newcastle

by air sea rescue for full life-support pioneered

in the UK at Glenfield.

There is an ECMO Centre in Newcastle, and it was actually

referred to them, it's about four miles from their doorstep,

and when it was referred to them last night, they were busy

with a transplant patient and therefore lacked the capacity

to take this baby on themselves

As well as being the East Mhdlands' only Congenital Heart Centrd,

Glenfield is home to the UK's longest running ECMO servicd,

training staff at centres across the country,

but if there is no children's heart surgery here, it could be rdlocated.

We do about half the countrx's ECMO.

You lose that, you lose half the ECMO, and it

will be very difficult - if not impossible -

to find beds for babies like this in the future.

Eight in every 1000 babies will have some form

of congenital heart disease.

Many are detected in pregnancy.

Ellen now knows her baby is one of them, but is unsure

of what lies ahead.

It was bad enough finding ott at the 20 week scan about otr little

girl having a heart defect, but then to find out

a few days later that Glenfield was under threat,

it means the future for our little girl is quite uncertain,

as to where she's going to be looked after.

The ventricle's main pumping chambers are back to front...

Ellen's nearest hospital is the Derby Royal, but as her baby

has a heart problem and with just weeks to go until she gives birth,

she is already under a spechalist consultant at Glenfield.

Ellen's towards the end of her pregnancy, and her b`by's

going to get its first oper`tion done while we're here.

Beyond that, who knows?

You might have to deliver in a city that's much further away

than you are now, you might have to stay there for weeks or lonths.

And that's to cope with the extra patients that we are seeing...

On the ward today is John Adler the chief executive who runs

Leicester hospitals has rolled up his sleeves to see for hhmself

the improvements that have been made since the last review

into children's heart surgery, only four years ago.

News of NHS England's plans to stop children's heart surgery

at Glenfield came without w`rning in an e-mail, and have put

this NHS boss at odds with the health service nathonally.

This is the letter, and essdntially this is where the bomb drops

and it basically says, "As a result of this assesslent

we are minded to cease commhssioning level 1 CHD services

from your organisation", which is just technical spe`k

for we don't intend for you to do children's heart surgery anx more.

From the right kind of motivation, to have the best outcome

for children, in the case of Leicester, NHS England h`ve come

to completely the wrong conclusion, and will produce

the opposite effect.

The safe and sustainable review began in 2008...

There have been three national reviews into children's heart

surgery, prompted by high mortality rates, at Bristol Royal Infhrmary

back in the 1980s and 90s, and a desire to concentrate

expertise in fewer bigger specialist centres.

Abandoned in 2012 because of flawed analysis, the last one took five

years, cost ?6 million and `lso called for Glenfield childrdn's

heart surgery to stop.

And I'm suspending the revidw today...

New standards for all ten specialist centres came into force in @pril,

outlining best practice to improve patient safety.

Yet some of these standards, NHS England say, Glenfield doesn't

meet now, and can't in the future.

Currently the caseload per surgeon isn't adequate.

There's only one substantivd surgeon, although three surgeons

working, and therefore they don t meet the April 2016 standard.

But also well short on the plans they have over the next thrde years,

and well short of achieving these standards by 2019.

I'm not aware of any preceddnt, any other service for which at some

point, out of the blue, somebody nationally has said,

a) you're not going to meet that standard and we don't

think you ever going to, and therefore effectively

we are closing you.

That is an approach I have not seen before.

At Glenfield, connecting thd baby boy from Newcastle to the ECMO

circuit is more complex than usual.

It's his only chance to rest his lungs and

oxygenate his blood for him.

With these patients it's very difficult to predict

how complicated...

None of them are ever easy, but I think in the 15 years I've

been cannulating babies, that's probably about as close

as I've come to not being able to get the cannula on,

purely because the vein was so small.

Critically ill babies like this one will spend time recovering

on paediatric intensive card.

It's another service, specialists fear, will also feel

the impact of stopping children s heart surgery here in the E`st

Midlands.

In Leicester, PICU is on two sites at Glenfield,

and here at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.

Patients come from all over the country.

We're from Stratford-upon-Avon and we came from Warwick Hospital,

because there were no beds locally, so Leicester

was the first bed available.

They wouldn't be able to do what they've done

in the Warwick Hospital what they do here.

It's really good.

I suppose you could have gone to Birmingham, couldn't you?

We could have gone there but they didn't have any beds.

Across the country paediatrhc intensive care is a service

already under pressure.

No children's heart surgery at Glenfield could also mean

there would be no need for PICU there either.

Dr Nichani set up Paediatric Intensive Care

in the city 20 years ago.

It was really serious.

In this unit we are functioning at a capacity of 100,

110%, when the optimum, according to NHS guidelines, is 85%,

so we are working overcapachty.

When it gets busy we get patients from as far

away as the Northwest, sometimes Scotland,

down south, Devon etc.

So PICU capacity as recentlx outlined by the report

is under severe strain.

To then shut the biggest intensive care unit in the East Midlands

will further add to that strain

They've made absolutely no contingency plans, they havd not

thought this through.

NHS England say no final decisions have been made.

Since plans were announced to stop children's heart surgery

at Glenfield, there are now separate reviews into

the impact on other services.

When looking at paediatric hntensive care and the implications of that

and ECMO, alongside, to make sure we've got the right

provision of services for all patients, including

Leicester.

11 days after we filmed his airlift to Glenfield, the baby boy

from Newcastle went back to the north-east.

Ellen's baby daughter, Annid, Glenfield's newest patient, arrived

safely and will have her first operation there in

the next few weeks.

A 14-week public consultation on NHS England's plans to stop children's

heart surgery at Glenfield hs due to start in December.

Next, this number really shocked me.

20 women every month in Northamptonshire are belheved

to be at risk of being groomed into a gang.

Now the county's police are working with former gang members

to tackle the problem.

Jo Taylor has the report.

This is the Hemmingwell Est`te in Wellingborough, where last year

a teenager was shot.

It was the second violent incident in just two days.

There's a growing concern whth gangs and violence in this area,

but now there's a new phenolenon that's worrying the police,

and that is girls in gangs.

Here in Northamptonshire, police believe 20 women a month

are at risk of being groomed.

Dr Simon Harding is a gang dxpert, and knows how these gangs operate.

They will be given a wad of cash, maybe ?500 and some drugs,

and they will be told that they have to establish a new drugs market

sell those drugs, multiply ht and maximise the profit

for the gang.

If they don't, if the deal goes wrong, if they fall into debt or if,

god forbid, they lose the money then they will be to violence

and they will be very vulnerable.

Cherie Johnson was born into crime and ran a gang in London.

She's allowed me to meet her and get a glimpse of this world.

She herself used girls to traffic drugs for her.

So you used to do this with young women?

Yes.

Explain to me what would happen

You would just give them wh`tever you need to, whatever drug ht was.

You would buy their tickets, follow them to the station.

If not, you send somebody to follow them to the station,

or you put them in a cab.

Why?

Because you want to make sure they're safe, they've

got your product.

And that product was drugs.

For Cherie it was all about the lifestyle drugs could buy.

When you're in that world it's all about displaying your wdalth,

it's all about showing who lakes the most money, who's on top,

who can have the most disposable income and attributes

without being robbed.

But that's all changed.

For Cherie, she turned her back on her past

when she became a mother.

She's now trying to make sure other young women don't

follow in her footsteps.

She's already helped girls leave gangs in London.

What I've noticed is there hs always some dysfunction in the homd,

why these people are drawn to this lifestyle.

For example, if mum's not there she might spend time in the park.

You have a local gang that's always identifying those girls

who are always in the park, see what they're up to.

Then they build a conversation from there.

For that reason she says shd needs to act as a surrogate parent

to the girls she helps.

Today she's sorting out the birthday arrangements with a colleagte

for a girl who's left a gang.

I've been calling you.

Oh, happy birthday!

The most common ways gangs operate in is through turfs.

For a place like Wellingborough you could have several gangs

within this one patch of the community.

Just that little bit?

Just that little bit.

If you were to ask a young person to highlight where some of the gangs

are, you'd properly end up with ten different circles in here.

They know where the gangs operate, they know the turfs

they're in charge of.

I'm, like, moving my servicd...

Cherie's first step is to introduce herself to the neighbourhood.

Supporting women and young people into education...

At first she's treated with suspicion.

Oh, now you want to ask me?

It's my business, the busindss I'm bringing here for the young

women, education employment.

That's why I don't understand why you lot are getting at me.

Then why don't you meet me halfway?

Why are we shouting across the square?

By talking to the boys, she's hoping she'll reach the girls in nded.

Obviously this is Hemmingwell, one of the estates...

Do I need to be here, do I need to go somewhere else?

Do I need to bring my service?

This is the best place, I'd say, still.

Is this alright?

This is the best place, where everyone thinks they're bad.

Nothing goes off here, obviously the odd gunshot now and then.

Once I'm here, they'll hear, won't they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously.

You need to chat to them.

I appreciate it, though, definitely.

Thank you very much.

Respect, yeah.

I explained to him I'm targdting the girls, so he points out

where the hostels were, and the girls with issues.

It works out you've got to be trained to do it,

you've got to know how to do it

I just watched you.

I was watching, and I was lhke. .

Whoa, look at her go.

And it's not just the street work where she is trying

to help change the culture.

Police in the East Midlands have just hired her and today

she's helping an officer in an unusual way.

The issue is that gang culture is a subculture,

so it's hard to understand ht.

A concerned mum's rung in and she's overheard her daughter talkhng

to somebody on the telephond.

She doesn't know what it me`ns, and I've got to be honest,

I didn't understand it eithdr, so I wrote it down...

She can decipher the language of this underground world and this

is invaluable to the police.

"Bring the food to the bando and make sure that you bring

them racks with you."

Basically, whoever her daughter s talking to is asking her to bring

illegal drugs across and also bring the money, as well.

So "food" is the drugs, and the bando is the house,

the drughouse, the traphousd, so they're probably

selling from there.

Right...

Small distribution, they cotld be cooking in there as well.

And make sure that you bring the racks, that's the money.

So that's quite a large quantity of money, probably

a minimum of ?1000.

Police now know there are fhve gangs in Rushden and Wellingborough

running drugs and are aware of up to 100 women who could be at risk.

I want to find out how people living on the estates in Wellingborough

are dealing with this new threat.

How can we take a generation out of crime if we don't deal

with their parents who shovd them out first thing in the mornhng

and don't want them back until nine or ten o'clock at night,

and don't worry if they're not back until midnight?

Concerned parents are asking what can be done

to protect their children, not just girls, but boys, too.

Born and brought up on Queensway Estate itself,

there's been a big change rdcently in gang culture on the estate,

where there's younger kids, as young as five, that can `ctually

point out and identify who the gang leaders are and what type of weapons

they are carrying on them.

It's also needed in both estates, somewhere for them to feel welcome,

feel like they're needed, as such.

For the police, the issue is now firmly on their radar.

Cherie's really helped us understand the potential roles females can play

and what we're trying to do now is we accept we need

to understand more.

It is new to us here, but again I know other forces are askhng

themselves the same questions.

We're just trying to be very proactive around

prevention with females.

And with people like Cherie, things are moving forward.

So what's being done about this gang problem and what more

needs to be done?

What we know is this is an hssue for this area, and it's now

on the police radar, so that's very good.

But more needs to be done.

We need schools, we need social workers, we need the council,

we need education, we need dverybody working together to solve

the problem, to identify who's at most risks and who's the most

vulnerable, and then to help them exit the gang and to cut down

on the criminal activity that's taking place.

And although Cherie has onlx been in the East Midlands

for a couple of weeks, she's confident it is only

a matter of time before she is helping vulnerable ghrls

I would like to think that there is not a capped `mount

of people I can support.

I just want everybody to know that our doors are here and open

to support them when they are ready to make that transition.

Finally this evening it is of course Halloween nhght

which normally means lots of fun and frolics,

however this year there's a new costume craze

which is dead serious.

The trend to dress up as a creepy clown and scare people has been

all over social media, and there have been sightings

in Leicester, Loughborough and Derby.

So, are they just jokers after a quick laugh,

or are they out to spread tdrror?

Al Needham has the story.

There's a strange character being seen across the nation,

and he's putting the willies up a lot of folk this month.

Creepy clowns.

Like all Halloween traditions, it started in America in thd 19 0s,

thanks to this book here.

Now, if you believe the medha, you can't go anywhere after dark

without youths in horror masks scaring the kiddies.

So what's going on?

And why, despite all the warnings to stop the scaring,

we still seeing them?

It needs to stop, because I do honestly believe that somebody out

there will end up getting htrt, it will go too far.

It very silly because it's not real clowns that are public enemx number

one, it's 16-18 -year-olds who are not thinking straight.

Now, I was never bothered about clowns as a kid,

but it seems loads of us are freaked out by them,

especially when they're hiding in bushes.

Already we've had petrified pensioners from Derby,

a pregnant woman from Whitwhck who went into premature labour

when she saw one in the strdet, and now here I am in Leicester.

Meeting a woman who's seven months pregnant, who had

the fright of her life.

So Clair, you're driving hole, you've got a car full

of kids, what happened?

As I approached my exit on the roundabout, the clown

that was swinging around the roadside post had jumped

into the road, as if he was coming to the front of my car.

So obviously I've papped my hooter quite a few times, but I ended

up going up the curb.

Right, so if there'd have bden a lamp post there...?

Me and the children wouldn't have stood any chance.

There's going to be people watching this going what's

she going on about, it's just a load of kids messing about

having a bit of a laugh?

It probably could have been kids having fun, wanting to join

the craze, however they don't understand how it affects other

people that's on the other side of it.

She won't go to the bathrool on her own, she won't even

put her feet out of the bed.

Louisa, what is it about clowns you find scary?

It's just that they're going around frightening people

and it's really scary.

Don't you think it's actually, behind that clown mask,

some sucky kid who's a bit older than you want to scare kids

like you?

Yeah.

And the clown craze has even spread here, to Loughborough.

I'm about to meet a bloke c`lled Michael Ison who was out

here walking his dog one night when he came across something

by this tree that nearly made him have to pick up his own mess.

Michael, we've just come from Leicester and we met a woman

who was absolutely terrified.

You've had a similar situation, haven't you?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'd taken my dog out for her usual walk

at about eight o'clock at nhght and as I walked down the alleyway...

My wife jumped.

Look in the bushes, behind the tree, there's a clown.

I took a picture of him.

But like I say, it gave my wife a bit of a fright.

He scary this one, isn't it?

He's very scary.

He's a big lad, not a skinnx youth, is he?

I'm a big lad myself, but just to see someone standing

there in the dark as well, it's a bit off-putting.

I wanted to talk to Leicestdrshire police about the two incidents,

but they wouldn't come on c`mera, so instead I'm going to the root

of the problem.

I'm going to talk to the Sheriff's Department

of Greenville County, South Carolina.

It's the place where the creepy craze all began,

downtown clown town.

So Ryan, how do the cops respond to these clowns?

We'll deal with it the way we deal with all calls.

We want to make sure that the community is safe

and they are assured there hs law enforcement present.

In this case, we did actively investigate as long as we could

and to all leads died down and we had nothing else

to go off of.

There was no video, there w`s no hard evidence or anything

to further the investigation.

But with that being said, we did increase patrols

and try to frequent those areas where the sightings were at.

Is it as bad the media make out

Are people like me making it worse, or is it actually a thing?

Well I don't want to blame it on you, but yeah,

because of the media hype it has definitely grown,

it became a lot more serious than what it should be.

We get a lot of crazy type calls, a lot.

I wanted to get behind the lask of a creepy clown, but tracking

one down was tricky.

There's been plenty of sightings on YouTube, though.

Here's one of the student dressed as a clown, running

around his campus, and yeah, that's a genuine chainsaw.

I decided to do it because `s a YouTuber, you have to follow

trends, and keep your channdl growing, and that's exactly why

I did it.

It's not like I filmed it just to be scary.

I currently have a YouTube video where I regularly upload pr`nks

and that's exactly why I filmed it.

I only chased my friends.

I preplanned, it was a preplanned video.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out this idea was a total wrong un,

and the lad was arrested for his antics.

I'm now meeting someone who thinks the clown craze

could go horribly wrong, Andy Cash, a solicitor from Derby.

So Andy, some people see thd clown craze as just a load of lads

having a bit of a laugh, and others are really

scared about it.

What is the law's take on all of this?

The law is quite clear.

If you cause somebody fear, harassment, alarm, distress,

then the fact that you're wdaring a clown mask is not going to be any

kind of excuse and they are serious offences I know the

police will act on.

Doesn't make it worse, the fact people have got masks on?

Well, potentially it can, yds.

People thinks that assault hnvolves physical violence, but if I jump out

at you and scare you so that you think you're about to bd

assaulted, that is actually an assault, a common assault in law

and carries six months imprhsonment.

So if you're at home tonight on Halloween night getting ready

to go out on the clown, if you will, what's your advice

You don't...

I expect on Halloween night to see young children perhaps

with their parents at my door, dressed up, that's completely

different to standing in a dark street jumping

out and scaring people.

Right, I've had enough of clowning about now.

I'm going to speak to the rdal deal.

Because it's got to the point where some actual clowns

are reporting a downturn in bookings for children's parties.

Bibbledy Bob, aka Rob Bowker, is the spokesperson

for Clowns International, the organisation which supports this

traditional art form.

The children are the most ilportant part of this.

A real clown will only make someone smile, a real clown

makes someone happy.

These people are fakers, they're not real clowns,

they're idiots running around in a cheap mask.

So where did the idea of clowns being scary come from?

It came from 80s B-movies, when Star Wars came out,

multi-million pound graphics and CGIs, B-movie directors

in Hollywood couldn't compete with that, so they just put a cheap

actor in a cheap costume and the slasher horror

movie was born.

Finally, Bob, if you could leet one of these killer clowns,

is there any message you'd give to them?

Oh yes.

Here's one I made earlier!

LAUGHTER.

Thanks, Bob.

HOOTER.

So, what have we learned from all of this?

I'll leave that up to you, but let's not forget that coulrophobi` -

the fear of clowns - is a very real thing,

and if you're one of those people, you have my full sympathy.

Come on everyone, let's get back to the true traditions of H`lloween.

Kids in manky costumes begghng for toffees, bring back the witch!

CREEPY LAUGHTER.

I do love those stripey stockings, Al!

That's it from all of us for this series.

We're back in the New Year, but do keep an eye out

for an Inside Out special investigation on the 11th

of November at 7:30pm.

You can find more details on that and all the stories we've covered

on our Facebook page.

Thanks for watching, and see you soon.

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90-second update.

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