19/01/2017 Channel Islands News

The majority of the trained nurses that I have lost have been through

licences expiring and we have lost some very experienced nurses.

Jersey's deteriorating water quality could be affecting beaches,

And support for people with autism in Guernsey enters a new era.

And we are in the grip of some pretty cold weather at the moment.

Fine and dry tomorrow but more frost is possible. All the details later

in the programme. National staff shortages

and restrictions on working in Guernsey are being blamed

for problems recruiting 25% of roles in the States-run

facilities are currently vacant. Privately run homes are finding it

equally tough to get It takes 42 members of staff to look

after the 39 residents here. Making sure they get the care

and support they need. But also to make sure

it feels like home. And recently it took a year to fill

just three nursing vacancies. And there's one hurdle

that's making it harder. The majority of the trained nurses

that I have lost have been through licences expiring and we have lost

some very experienced nurses. We have a working party and it has been

working closely with housing and putting out issues across, so

hopefully they will recognise that we need to keep our experienced

staff. And Sylvia's been

helping with that today. An experienced nurse,

who's now doing a Masters But as it stands will have

to leave in another three. Of course I would like to stay. I

really like my work and I really like the home. I don't know if it is

because I came from the island and it is very calm and people here are

very friendly. I would like, but it depends on the housing. This

restrictive housing licences would perhaps provide a potential remedy

but with an ageing population and inevitable need for more staff,

those running care homes like this one say this problem isn't going to

go away on its own. The decision on how

to pay for Jersey's The plan is to borrow

up to ?400 million. But States Members have voted to put

off the debate until the plans are looked at more closely,

as Luxmy Gopal explains. A vision of Jersey's future hospital

- just under ?500 million needed Where that money will come

from is still undecided. The debate on whether to borrow up

to ?400 million was delayed from yesterday due to a question

in the States of whether The States aren't allowed to borrow

more than they collect in tax - so had to stop to check

whether they collect enough to be allowed the amount of borrowing

needed for the hospital. But, while that issue threw a cat

among the pigeons yesterday, now there's a new delay -

to allow scrutiny politicians This is a ?400 million

borrowing to be paid back These things need to be

looked at so carefully. That's the role of scrutiny, to make

sure this is well researched, this is based on sound evidence

and it does take time. States Members agreed to more time,

despite previous reluctance by the Treasury Minister,

who feared what interest rates It s difficult to tell,

markets can move in both directions, but if they moved against us

we could see up to ?6 million or more of additional costs

in funding the hospital as a result But that's a gamble the States

are taking, to spend more time on hospital funding,

which would involve the biggest debt The father of a new born baby

who died in Guernsey claims his partner was wrongly given

drugs to induce labour Three women who, at the time,

worked in the Princess Elizabeth Hospital maternity ward

face misconduct charges. Today the father of the baby

who died in 2014 gave He said the couple planned

as natural a birth as possible - but labour-inducing drugs were given

without his partner's agreement, and without

the approval of a consultant. The practice of midwives acting

on their own initiative has been described as part of a culture known

as "The Guernsey Way." Jersey environmentalists warn

deteriorating water quality Save Our Shoreline says

unless action's taken, marine life will disappear

and tourism will suffer. The Environment Department has asked

advisers from the UK to review A clear blue sky and clear blue

water - it's an image Jersey has built a reputation on,

but some are worried Because the water quality has

deteriorated, it's affecting Even the texture of the sand

is different because the species We don't want a green mass,

we want our golden beaches back. The campaign group has

sent its report to the government review panel that's looking

at water quality. "The Panel and their advisor

will raise any issues "with the Department that

are relevant to nitrates during The debate about the impact

of sea lettuce isn't new, but we're still no closer

to agreeing what causes it. Jersey's Environment Department has

asked UK advisers to review They'll also be talking

to Jersey Water who regularly We check our water daily,

on a daily basis. We take thousands of tests a year

to make sure that the water that not only the water that we're taking

into our reservoirs is of good quality but also the water we're

supplying our customers With another summer to look forward

to, it's hoped our beaches The Battle of Flowers

in Jersey may drop Mr Battle While Miss Battle is usually local,

and wins her crown, Mr Battle tends to be a celebrity who's paid

?8-12,000 to come to the island. But festival organisers

believe the money could Support for people with autism

in Guernsey has entered a new era. The Guernsey Autism Project, or GAP,

has launched today - as a central information hub

for the island. It's the culmination

of a long term project, that'll see the charitable sector

work more closely with Building friendships

at the Amazing Club. It's just one of the services

provided for youngsters Once a week, they meet

at the Youth Commission to enjoy Now, anyone who wants

to learn more about autism, and support groups like this can

access a wealth of information From today the Guernsey

Autism Project, or GAP, The problem with the situation

we have at the moment is a lot of people with autism are not

actually eligible for existing services,

therefore they're not known. We know there are gaps in provision,

we know there are people out there whose needs are not being met,

but we don't know how many Some national studies suggest

as many as one in 50 people It's hoped this new initiative

could lead to more specific figures for Guernsey,

as people who drop in will be given the opportunity to provide

information anonymously to help There are no prevalent studies

in Guernsey on autism, so if we could actually

have a Guernsey prevalence study I'm not sure how we could ever have

that funded, but in terms of perhaps trying to collate a bit of local

data ourselves, then that could go GAP has already listed a wealth

of information online, and talks are ongoing with Health

and Social Care to provide help for adults who suspect they may be

autistic themselves. It may be for those people who think

that they might meet that autism spectrum condition but are unsure,

and we are acutely aware that there are lots of

unknown people out there. For the first time in Guernsey's

history, the cards are on the table Whether it's information, support,

or just a friendly face, the Guernsey Autism Project

is now the one-stop-shop. Roisin Gauson, BBC Channel

Islands News, Guernsey. Guernsey's Heather Watson was

knocked out of the Australian Open by American qualifier Jennifer Brady

2-6, 7-6, 10-8. The British number two was on course

to win in straight sets, but lost five match points before

being defeated in a deciding We've had a fairly dry week

of weather, but so much colder. I resisted the woolly hat,

because my ears stick out. I have got a Willie hat. I am going

to need it. It is pretty cold. -- Woolley. Lovely sunshine. Sunrise at

St Helier Yacht cloud is to morning. It is going to be a cold night to

come. Not just in mind but even on the coast a part possible frost. A

cold tri- gate tomorrow. Early frost but again plenty of sunshine. The

setup has been the same always with this area of high pressure. It

begins to move and this is for the weekend. A bit more high cloud. High

pressure still tomorrow. As we move through the day and Saturday, the

wind changes direction, a bit more southerly and that might bring more

cloud. Still a lot of dry weather and still pretty cold. Temperatures

already tumbling and by the end of the night most of us will see

temperatures close to freezing, possibly even a couple of degrees

below freezing for Jersey. Tomorrow is another lovely day. Almost

unbroken sunshine. A bit of patchy cloud but most of us good clean dry

air but it is not very warm tomorrow. Just four or five Celsius

will be the maximum. Times of high water... For a work surfers there

are some waves around, a few more by the end of the day particularly

along the northern shores of Guernsey, two or three feet. Coastal

waters, easterly winds, forced three to four and generally fair with good

visibility. Here is how the dogs for the weekend. Temperatures not much

different so you will still need to keep yourself one. -- still dry and

still cold. The king called for the weekend but

that full read/write. That is the latest news. Back at around 8pm and

10:30pm. Good night. overwhelming volume of need that the

service itself has revealed. Well, this week, we've highlighted

some of the pressures facing But how can those pressures be eased

and what will a future Joining us tonight to discuss those

and more are Sarah Wollaton, the MP for Totnes, who's a former GP

and chairman of the Claire Wright is an independent

councillor in East Devon Kathy Byrne is chief

executive of the Royal And Angela Pedder is chief executive

of the Success Regime, set up to turn around the finances

of the NHS in North, We also made repeated requests

for a Government minister, Thank you for joining us. Let me

start by saying to you, Sarah, that the letters NHS seem to have the

word crisis permanently attached to them. How would you sum up the

current state of the health service? Whereas winter pressures are nothing

new, what's now changed are those pressures are year-round and become

particularly severe in the winter. I would agree that the current

pressures are unsustainable and my view is we need to look at this

across both health and social care together, but it's not just about

funding, it's about workforce and greater efforts on prevention. We

need to have a whole system response rather than looking at this

separately. We'll talk through some of those points this evening. Where

do you think the key pinch points are and where could they be eased to

ease the pressure of the whole of the health service? In some respects

I think the health service is still responding in the way it might have

responded back in the time of Nye Bevan. We are still waiting for

things to happen before we step in rather than trying to prevent and

promote better health care and keep people at home for as long as they

can possibly be there. We are in fact still waiting for them to

become ill and then trying to fix them once they become ill. How do

you change that? There have been long held campaigns to try to

encourage people to look after themselves. When you're in red

alert, or black alert, and you are asking people not to come to A,

what should people do instead? How can people look after themselves

more and not present themselves at hospital as the first port of call?

We need to step back and look at the system as a whole rather than

looking at it only when it is in strife. If we take ourselves out of

the crisis situation and stand back and look at the monumental resources

that we apply to the health service and the social care system as a

whole and say to ourselves, are we really putting our resources in the

right place? Are we really saying to the community, do it all yourself?

Or are we saying we think we've got our resources a little bit wrongly

aligned with the need and now is the time for us to say should we spend

it all acute care or should we redesigned the system so we are

helping people to promote better health for themselves? Which is

where the sustainability and transformation plan comes in. A lot

of viewers tonight and this week have been asking if there's so much

pressure on acute hospitals, what sense does it make as part of the

SDP you're currently considering in closing community hospitals? Because

all the evidence in Devon shows every day there are 600 people in a

hospital bed that don't need to be there. It's back to service point

about the integration between health and social care. The only option

available at the moment, if a GP has a frail old person that needs

additional support, some nursing, the only option for most people is

they refer people into A If you could intervene early, if you've got

a plan, you could wrap services around that individual for sometimes

a short period of time and maintain that person at home. That's the

shift we have to be able to deliver, to offer people a different set of

choices. People tell us they want to be at home if they can be. People

are also very concerned there won't be local hospitals if the

sustainability plans go ahead. Lots of people from North Devon are

worried about the pressure on services elsewhere. If you no longer

have A and other services at the North Devon District Hospital. What

sense does it make to close some of these hospitals if we know there are

already pressures on the acute hospitals? There are no plans or

proposals at North Devon. We have a review of acute services across all

of Devon. A and maternity could go. We are reviewing services across

Devon, but there are no proposals. We do have problems in terms of

ensuring we can continue to deliver the standard of all acute services

for stroke, maternity, paediatrics, neonatal. Standards have gone up.

There is so much more we can do for people and we have to be sure those

services are safe and sustainable and because we don't have problems

in terms of staffing at St Mary's, that services don't fall over.

Recently in North Durston, somebody left and overnight we didn't have a

service. We had to put something in at short notice. We have a

responsibility to look forward and plan and say how our services

sustainable? If the service isn't available at short notice, it could

become unsafe quickly. We will talk more in detail throughout the

evening. Claire Wright. Can you explain the logic which many viewers

are struggling to understand of proposals to close community beds

when we know there is so much pressure elsewhere in the health

service? It doesn't seem very logical at all. The thing that no

one has yet mentioned is government underfunding. Devon can to counsel,

I'm a counsellor, and social care has had huge budget cuts over the

past few years. Angela talked about 600 people being in hospital beds

every day that shouldn't be there. If social care was adequately

funded, a lot of those patients could get back home will stop but it

isn't. If there was proper funding for social care, we wouldn't

necessarily need the community hospitals? If their work a package

is in place for people to be cared for at home or other environments

within the community? No, I think community hospitals are absolutely

vital. If you look at the occupancy rates set out in an audit from 2015,

the occupancy rates are really high, around 85%. Local people really

value them. Community hospitals are absolutely vital in alleviating the

pressure from acute hospitals. I don't think we can do without them.

Let's go back to the beginning of the process. People frustrated they

can't get an appointment with their GP so they rocked up at A The

Prime Minister has said this week GPs need to do more to alleviate

that pressure and their operating hours need to be extended. What's

the feeling from GPs? Dual practice is under enormous pressure. The

workforce pressure is very severe. When I think back 20 years ago,

there would have been many applications for every vacancy in

general practice. There are parts of Devon where people can't recruit or

get any applications for those places. This is not just about GPs.

It's about specialist nursing staff and also physiotherapists. Many

professionals across the whole team. What did you think of the idea of

having more GPs in emergency departments so they can filter out

and deal with some of the patient's? In some places that does help when

you can have triage at the front door of the carriage of the

Department and direct people to co-located casualties departments.

One of the criticisms about the government responds on Friday was

that if you're asking GPs to man: OK did accident and emergency, and man

conventional out of our services as well as services on a Saturday and

Sunday in their own surgeries, there isn't the workforce to go round in

many parts of the country. GPs would love to be editor of a staggered

working week to provide that care, but there simply isn't the workforce

to do all three. What we found on the health committee when we looked

at this in detail was we are in danger of undermining existing out

of hours providers if we stretch it too far. We have to make sure these

responses are appropriate to the area. As a form of rule GP, I know

that if you federate very brutal practices, what can happen is people

travel to other more inconvenient local -- location. It's not one size

fits all. We'll explore more of the issues on Facebook after 7pm. I want

to bring in some of the ideas we saw proposed earlier, the idea of GPs in

accident and emergency. Is that something you would consider in the

Royal Cornwall and what difference could that make? I must say I agree

with what Sarah has said in relation to how far can we stretch already

pressured resources. I would go back to saying, as I said earlier, if

people were more appropriately cared for in their homes, why would we

take GPs, general practitioners, and put them in an Acute Hospital to see

a patient when they arrive? Wouldn't it make more sense to support the

GPs and the primary care and the wider community services to assist

people to stay at home and provide alternatives. When people,

particularly elderly fragile people, when they come near an Acute

Hospital, they tend to be admitted because of their own circumstances

not being good at home, or there isn't the support for them. They

come into the Acute Hospital and then it's very difficult for them to

get out again. Sometimes we de-condition them to the point where

they become no longer able to look after themselves and we make them

dependent. There couldn't be anything sillier than that. And more

damaging to individuals. We have literally only just scratched the

surface in the 11 minutes we've just had, but we will continue the

discussion on Facebook later. Later I hope we can explore some of your

ideas for solutions and how the NHS may look in the future. Thank you

very much indeed for that. Keep your comments coming. Thank you for

questions and comments we've had. We'll continue the debate later in

the evening. Yes, thank you for your comments and

questions about the NHS. And remember that debate

will continue in just a few minutes You don't need to have

a Facebook account to watch. You can find it at

facebook.com/bbcspotlight. In the meantime, David, how was it

looking on the weather? Cold is the main story for both tonight and

tomorrow. Some low temperatures. A widespread overnight frost.

Temperatures now just two or three degrees above freezing for most of

the south-west. Frost is already forming and it will be very frosty

tomorrow morning. Some lovely sunshine, but definitely feeling

pretty cold. An area of high pressure which moves around a bit

more through the weekend. It opens the door to allow more clout to come

through. Clear skies at the moment and that will last until the end of

tomorrow. As we move through Friday and into Saturday, we start to see

changes in the wind direction. It becomes more southerly. By the start

of the weekend, there's a lot more cloud, particularly for the more

western parts of Cornwall, where there may also be showers on

Saturday. The frost is already starting to form. Some pretty cold

weather across the whole of southern parts of England. It's been cold but

fine. Let me show you what it's been like looking across Plymouth Sound.

This is Jenny Cliff. Jeff has been Kacaniklic is of the setting sun.

It's been glorious stop -- Jeff has been catching a glimpse of the

setting sun. Temperatures have struggled because of the cold air.

Even though we've had the sunshine, it's been pretty chilly. The frost

is starting to form overnight and by the end of the night we are looking

at low temperatures. -3 minus four. For tomorrow, pretty much the same

sort of day as today. Maybe a bit more cloud floating along the south

coast, just spoiling the sunshine. But for all of us it will be a cold,

fine, dry day with a top temperature of between four and eight Celsius.

For many of us, you will need to wrap up warm. There is more breeze

out the West. A cold wind. You will need to be wrapped up warm. The

times of high water... And the surf...

More of a wave along the north coast. The waves generally clean. An

easterly wind tomorrow. Occasionally five through the English Channel and

through the Isles of Scilly. Fair with good visibility. You've been

taking pictures and some lovely shots this afternoon. This is the

famous bridge across the River Tame R. Some frost in Devon. And some

glorious sunrises and sunsets over the last couple of days. On Saturday

and Sunday, a bit more cloud around. Still dry, but note the

temperatures. Still a cold story as well. Have a good evening. Back to

you. That's all from Spotlight

here on BBC One, but our health debate will continue in just a few

minutes on our Facebook page. You don't need to have

a Facebook account to watch. You can find it at

facebook.com/bbcspotlight. I hope you'll join us there at 7pm.

Have a good evening. See you tomorrow.