13/08/2013 Look East - East

A bleak future the staff at the James Paget Hospital as managers say

it needs to save 600 jobs. Robbie Grabarz gets ready to go for

gold in the high jump. And introducing the Brainy Dogs. How

Faith is helping Vicky with her brain injury.

First tonight, the hospital which admits it might not be able to

survive unless it cuts 600 jobs or makes radical changes to the way it

operates. The warning comes in a new report

from the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston. And its language couldn't

be clearer. Financially the trust faces a "perfect storm". With

hundreds of jobs likely to go and remaining staff seeing their

conditions change. Medically, it admits its reputation was damaged by

critical inspection reports. The loss of confidence meant GPs

referred fewer patients, Some services could be lost, adds the

report, with patients travelling to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital

instead. And perhaps the starkest sentence of all: "Given the

challenges we face, we are at risk of not being clinically viable as a

stand-alone district general hospital." In a moment we'll speak

to local MP and Health Minister Norman Lamb, but first Richard

Daniel reports from the James Paget. It is a hospital that risks becoming

unviable. So says the new five-year plan for the hospital. The report

warns that by 2018 up to 600 jobs could go as the trust tries to find

�20 million of savings a year. All at a time when the hospital is

dealing with a rapidly ageing population and one of the highest

incidences of dementia in the country. A&E admissions are expected

to rise by over 11%. Some services may be provided 27 miles away at the

Norfolk and Norwich. We have already have some services we share with

them. Cardiology for example, visiting

clinicians. Our patients already travel to the Norfolk and Norwich

for them. Dermatology, haematology, fertility

and maternity services could change. We intend to streamline our

management structure so that we can rainvest in the front line. Can you

give an absolute assurance that there will be no job losses when it

comes to nursing and consultancy staff? Absolutely. We are not

looking at front-line services at all.

Unison says the number of matrons is to be cut. Services like pathology

have already gone. We are very concerned about the increasing

fragmentation of services. Users of the hospital worry about the future.

Sharing the right staff would be good but it needs to be very

carefully managed. Inevitably there will be casualties. People have to

suffer for it, haven't they? Cutbacks or the time. They are not

going to be able to do the operations or anything. I think the

job losses is dreadful and I don't know how they will cope.

The hospital insists it is investing in the future. A&E will be expanded

and there is to be a new day centre but the radical changes needed to

survive mean that tough changes will need to be made over five years.

Let's speak to Norman Lamb, the MP for North Norfolk and also the

Health Minister. They don't seem to know what they asked saying because

in the report they say there is a working assumption we will need to

reduce headcount by about 600 yet they are denying that today. I am

slightly confused. I have spoken to the chief executive today, who

confirms that if they were to do nothing, not radically redesign

services to meet the needs of this ageing population, they would be

looking at that level of reduction in jobs. By doing the changes, they

can avoid that. In your interview the chief executive made the point

that they are not looking at any cuts to front-line staff at all.

They need to make it very clear what they plan to do. In essence, they

are doing the right thing in setting out a sort of strategic plan for

five years to make sure, guarantee the hospital's long-term future, and

the fact is that we are all having to look at significantly redesigning

the way health services are provided because we have people living

longer. The figures they put out in their report is that in their local

area the number of people over 85 will increase by 75% by 2030. We

need to be much better at keeping people out of hospital, maintaining

their health much better than we do at the moment. It says, giving the

challenges we face we are at risk of not being clinically viable. Do we

have to say that now some smaller hospitals will end up being

glorified health centres? No, and I have talked to the chief executive

about this. Their absolute plan is to maintain all of the core

services, work collaboratively with the Norfolk and Norwich, and I have

had a personal family experience of where it is critically important to

get your loved one to the right place for sometimes complex

surgery. You do not want to be going, if you have a stroke or

serious heart attack, to somewhere that is not properly equipped to

deal with that. You want to get your loved one to the best possible

place. It makes absolute sense to work collaboratively with the

Norfolk and Norwich but also work much more closely in an integrated

way with GPs, care services. We have a horribly fragmented system at the

moment and if we join up services in a much more offensive way we can

keep people healthy and reduce cost to the system. The main message at

the national level is that the government is maintaining,

protecting funding for the health service to cope with these difficult

changes we need to make. The Director of Emergency Operations

at The East of England Ambulance Trust has resigned. Neil Storey has

been with the trust for 14 years. Unions had been calling for him to

step down after criticism over poor response times.

People who live in a village in Norfolk are celebrating after the

local council stepped in to save their pub. The Crown at refund was

about to be sold off for housing but a new law means that local people

have a chance to buy it first. Today the Pubs Minister released a list of

100 pubs across the country being given similar protection. They

include 14 in one part of Essex. Locals in Reepham are getting

together to stop the crown from being converted to housing. Now they

have more time to save it. It will ensure that people know that

everybody in Reepham is behind the Crown and the people running it.

There is a great feeling that if the pub when it would be a great loss to

Reepham. Assets of community value mean that the pub can't be sold on

without the local people being told, it gives powers greater power

to refuse planning rights and it means there can be a six-month bid

to buy the pub. In a statement, the owners of the Crown, Punch taverns,

says, we agree that pubs are wasn't, we would have walked away.

We were drinking here for 30 years as customers and we took it on to

keep it open. Many others believe they are viable as well. A quarter

of the first 100 pubs are in Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. 14 pubs

or in the till spurred district. -- alone are in.

It is not only saying they are wonderful old timber structures but

also that they are asset to the town as a business and a business that

brings others into our community. The Crown at Reepham has been given

a retrieved but residents now need to find around �300,000 to buy it.

Brandon Lewis is the MP for great Yarmouth and the minister

responsible for government policy on pubs. Earlier he told me why it was

important to save them. Pubs pay a hugely important role in

communities, they are worth around �100,000 to local economy. Pubs are

responsible for around a million jobs in the country. It is a

phenomenal British institution and industry, one worth celebrating and

making sure it has a history in the past and a history in the future.

Pubs are being sold off in quite a fast rate. Isn't that a sign that

they are not viable? We also have pubs opening as well. Our lifestyles

are changing, different kinds of pubs are being successful. It is up

against a clear commercial challenge, entertainment at home

that we did not have a decade ago. Pubs are in the competitive

environment. Good pubs offer good value for money, good service and

entertainment and they are doing very well. As consumers, residents,

we need to use those pubs if we value them. Then we can keep them

and see them continuing to be successful. This government believes

in market forces. Aren't you trying to adjust the market and preserve

something in aspic? It is an important balance. The assets are

chance to see, these are important to our community. It gives the

community a pause to see whether they have a say in that pub or not.

Communities have made pubs very successful but it is a commercial

environment. Pubs have do offer a good product and we as consumers

need to make sure we go and use them. What reaction have you had

from the big pub chains? industry seems to be very positive

about what the government is doing, we have had no negative reaction.

That is a sign of the majority of the industry. This measure just

gives communities that pause for thought to say, this is an asset we

think is worth protecting. Even for successful pubs that get listed, it

is important because it is a statement about how much they value

the pub. Thank you very much. A company director has been charged

with arson after a fire which wrecked a bathroom and kitchen

centre in Norfolk. Justin Hindry who lives in Drayton was released on

bail and will be back in court next month. A passer-by raised the alarm.

Still to come, how Faith and Hope are helping a charity in Suffolk.

And helping to beat ash dieback disease with the help of a computer

game. Silicon Fen, the cluster of

high-tech companies around Cambridge, has had many success

stories, companies now worth liens. This week we are looking at

businesses making their money from exporting is. A software and

computing company have gadgets used the whole world over.

Heard of CS are? The chances are something you own have something of

their technology in them. Their chips or in 60% of the world's point

and shoot cameras. -- their chips are in. Their software connects

different devices together. It is a global industry. We develop

a lot of the gadgetry and innovation in the latest gadgets, but our

customer base is broad spread from the US, Europe and Asia. They are

the first company to develop software that connects one speaker

to another. Wireless audio in stereo. Started by nine people not

much more than a decade ago, it now employs more than 2000 worldwide.

Last year it sold its mobile phone section to Samsung for �200 million.

CS are is now worth around �1 billion. -- CSR. The heart of our

business, voice and music, is still here. It is a core of excellent in

our product develop men. -- excellence. The chips developed and

tested here in merged in a year or two in the next generation of

devices. One of the frontiers we are attacking is wireless

communication, the new standard of Bluetooth. This enables a whole host

of applications not available in the past. When you have not taken your

medication you can get a reminder. Another Silicon Fen success story,

Cambridge witnessed -- wizardry used in gadgets across the world.

We continue our series tomorrow with a look at the firm in Cambridgeshire

that makes machines that can print on anything from eggs to drink cans.

Fantastic what they can come up with. Scientists in Norwich hope a

new game on Facebook can help them crack the science find the tree

disease at Taibach. The more people who play the game, the more likely

they are to find a strain of the tree that can resist the disease.

Ash dieback has lain dormant since the winter but it is about to

release its deadly spores again. This would in Norfolk is the first

place that ash dieback was found in the wild. Experts predict that

within 20 years 95% of these trees will have died. That is an idea that

is upsetting and Edwards. She has roamed this woodland for 20 years

and can spot signs of the disease wherever we go.

You can see these leaves are dried and dead on the tree, the branch

completely dead wood. Right up to the top the tree has died. Ann is

also a research scientist studying ash dieback. She found the fungus on

infected leaves. It lay dormant over winter and now it is growing and

soon unimaginable amounts of spores will be released into the

atmosphere. Devastating. A lot of the ash were already far -- showing

signs of the disease. The goal is to find a strain of ash tree that can

tolerate the fungus. For seven months teams have been working on a

way to get a bit closer to that and today they have released this on

Facebook, a game named after the Latin for ash. This is a small

segment of DNA from the ash tree. The top one is your target and the

idea is to get these ones along the rows to match up as closely as

possible. Why create a game rather than a computer system? Computers

can only be trained to make random guesses whereas humans can make

educated ones. That is where you come in. We need good catalogues of

genetic variants so it would be great if people could play the game

and help us to find the raw materials with which we could find

out why ash trees might be resistant to a disease. They are hoping

thousands of people will play the game, every go adding more to their

knowledge of what makes a tree a potential survivor. It is a long

game and this is just one small and vital part of it.

It has been a frustrating year for Robbie Grabarz, he won a bronze

medal at 2012 but since then the high jumper from Saint Neots has

been unable to produce his best. The signs are that his form is coming

back. He sailed through qualifying in Moscow and has booked his place

in the final of the world Championships.

Having had not such a great run in I felt like I have taken the pressure

of myself but training went well so I do put pressure on myself. Bronze

at the London Olympics. Since then it has been a struggle. An early

start in Moscow, he was keen to ease himself into the competition. 2.17

metres, a struggle. He upped his game. Four perfectly rinses, 2.29

metres, joint first position to qualify for Thursday's final.

Competition -- qualification is really cut-throat and in the final

you can enjoy it more. There are not 80,000 people shouting my name here

so it might be easier to contain my excitement. It has been an

up-and-down year for the 25-year-old but perhaps he is peaking at the

right time. I would love to get a medal but the standard is very high.

Since I won a medal somebody seems to have pressed the fast forward

button. I have managed to slow it down now and I feel like I am

getting back on my feet. It has been a bit of a whirlwind. Bronze in

London, going for gold in Moscow. Within the last half an hour, Andrew

Osagie has failed to wind a medal. He came in fifth. Disappointment

showed on his face. News now of the charity claiming a

worldwide first using dogs to help people with brain injuries. The

project based in Suffolk has just been given a quarter of �1 million

from the lottery. They call themselves Brainy Dogs. They are

great team. Vicky Stobart, who has water on the brain, out with her

trusty companion Faith. Faith came from the Felixstowe Blue

Cross rescue centre. She was trained by inmates from a local prison. She

has been by Vicki's side for nine months. Since I got her I stayed

inside -- I am going out rather than staying inside. My occupational

therapist mentioned the scheme and I got her and now we go everywhere

together. She is very perceptive about what might happen to you.

Yes, she is picking up if I am going to have a seizure and indicating

that five or ten minutes beforehand so I can get somewhere flat and

safe. We give each other the love. At the Ipswich headquarters of it --

of Headway, another Brainy Dog gives help to this woman, knocked over 20

years ago. The thing that really changes is personality. People lose

their friends and family members, leaving that person isolated and

lonely. But dogs don't judge so it means somebody has somebody to love

who will love them back. The grant of �266,000 will see ten dogs

trained every year for the next ten years. Johnny is a former lorry

driver injured in a road accident 20 years ago. This Brainy Dog is Hope.

Like Faith, the name says it all. Hello. Conditions were perfect last

night for watching the meatier shower -- meteor shower. Around this

time of year the skies lit up by meteors, commonly known as shooting

stars. With clear skies expected tonight you may be able to see more.

If you capture it on film, please moment, we did have it first thing

this morning. Increasing amounts of cloud have produced some showers. In

some parts of the region we are just starting to see the cloud rate and

seeing some sunshine. Still the risk of showers over the next few hours.

They will track south eastwards, clearing away. After midnight the

skies are expected to clear. It will be chilly once again. These are the

typical values we could expect but in the extremes we could get down to

six or seven Celsius. The risk of one or two isolated mist and fog

patches. That is around dawn. We have a light westerly or

north-westerly wind. A bright start to the day that we have a net

approaching weather front. -- but we have an approaching. That will drag

in some humid and muggy air. Expect sunshine tomorrow morning,

increasing cloud, but essentially it looks like it will stay dry.

Slightly warmer, temperatures climbing a couple of degrees beyond

what they got to today. Highs around 22 or 23. The south-westerly wind

will continue to freshen, bringing warm, humid air. Tomorrow night will

be completely contrasting to tonight. No chance of seeing

shooting stars. It will be quite muggy, temperatures around the

teens. You can see this weather front moving away for tomorrow

night. We clear our patchy rain away, some brightness, perhaps some