03/01/2014 Look East - West

Failing targets despite extra funding. The A departments failing

to cope. The Cambridge academic Lord White

Highlands stag is in a stable condition. The stag ran out of the

gate and gored someone as they came out. It is unbelievable.

We will be here later, it including: The writer, Louis de Bernieres, pays

tribute to his friend and neighbour, the acclaimed novelist, Elizabeth

Jane Howard. And Alex will be here with the

weather after a day of flooding in the region.

Good evening. First tonight. Have our A

departments reached breaking point? In the run up to Christmas, as

predicted, hospitals experienced extra pressure on emergency

services. Here hospitals treated a total of almost 17,500 people in

just one week and many failed to meet the government target on

waiting times. The aim is to get 95% of A patients seen within four

hours. But out of 11 emergency departments here, only the Luton and

Dunstable, Bedford and Peterborough achieved that. There are now calls

for patients to be charged for using emergency services. Stuart Ratcliffe

is at Milton Keynes hospital where they're pushing for a new and bigger

department. The management would like to see a

new, bigger A department. When the Department was first dealt it was

designed to treat around 20,000 patients a year. It is now treating

somewhere around the figure of 80,000. This is one of the

fastest`growing towns in the country so the pressures on this department

are only going to increase. Yesterday I spent the day here to

find out how it coping. On New Year's Day, records were

broken here. Nearly 90 ambulances or patience to this department, more

than any other day in the hospital's history. So how to ease

this pressure? In the summer, Milton Keynes was given ?2.7 million but

the government. Some of that money was spent on new beds to prevent

ambulances stacking up outside. We have new ambulance bays in the last

few weeks. Yesterday we had 88 ambulances coming from South Central

alone, let alone the other surrounding areas. We bring them

into here and we can assess them, give them pain relief. When I

visited on January the 2nd, things had returned to normal. Went out

drinking over New Year, as everybody does. I fell home `` stumbled home

and tripped up a curb and fractured meisters `` thumb. It has been quite

good. They x`rayed me within 15 minutes. The extra funding has paid

for more staff and over Christmas this allowed the department to hit

it waiting time targets. There is a growing belief that in the longer

term, the only option is to build a larger A We are putting together

an outline case for funding for a new A, and people with minor

injuries can still come to this site and be treated in a timely way. But

we will make sure we will have the acute A capacity that will last

the hospital for the next ten to 20 years. But to relieve current

pressures, the hospital once people to think about whether this

department is the right place to be treated. It is very frustrating for

us as a team who are trying to see the patients who need emergency

care. But it is frustrating for the patients as well. So they are having

to wait. It can be frustrating if we are turning them away from here

telling them to go to their GP. There is no doubt our A

departments are under pressure. The question is, with public money so

scarce, how those pressures relieved? So, in summary it was a

successful Christmas and New Year for this A department. It hit all

of its targets and it wasn't the only one to hit it waiting time

targets. The Lister hospital, Luton and Dunstable, Bedford, Peter

borough, Adam Brookes all hit their targets, but Northampton failed to

meet their targets. But the hospital told us it did see a 20% increase in

the number of people using its A department compared to last year.

Back to the report you mentioned earlier, one in three GPs said they

would back the idea of people being charged to use A departments. It

could work something like this, perhaps patients with a charge

between five and ?10 to use the A department. If it was a genuine

emergency you would get it back. emergency you would get it back

This is only an idea and there are no further proposals to introduce

charging just yet. As well as hospitals, ambulance services have

also been busy over the Christmas period.

The East of England Ambulance Service says it received more than

2,000 emergency calls during the New Year celebrations, a slight fall

compared to last year. Most of the calls involved falls or assaults.

A woman from Cambridge who was critically injured when she was

gored by a Highland stag, is tonight making progress despite being in an

induced coma in hospital. Dr Kate Stone suffered a life threatening

injury to her neck when the stag bolted and struck her. Alex Dunlop

has just sent this report from the hospital in Glasgow.

Doctors have carried out an operation on. The Kate Stone's

throat. They say her condition is serious but stable. She is in this

medical induced coma so her windpipe can heal. I spent the day at the

remote village in western Scotland where I found a community bewildered

and shocked. The gate work Dr Kate Stone was gored by the stag, firmly

shut. Dr Stone had been enjoying a short break in the Highlands with

friends and joint party at this hotel. A local musician invited them

back to his home for a nightcap and that is when they discovered the

animal. It seems the stag had wandered into the garden and became

disorientated, unable to find its way out because of this fence. When

Kate Stone and her friends returned late at night, they walked through

the gate, the stag became spooked and charged at her. Its antlers

pierced her neck and chest and Dr Stone was airlifted to hospital in

Glasgow where doctors operated on her windpipe. In summer they are up

on the hill. Local people are appalled by what happened. The stag

ran out of the gate and gored someone as they came out, which is

unbelievable. Someone described it as a one in a million event? It is.

I think it was trapped and just tried to get out. I also heard

everybody else in the group had head torches on and she didn't. The

44`year`old research engineer from Cambridge who is an expert in

microelectronics recently showed off her latest project to the BBC.

Following the accident, her company based in the city told us they had

received overwhelming support from friends around the world. Red stags

are common in this part of the Highlands and very shy. Attacks on

humans are unheard`of. This man is a local shepherd and knows the area

very well. The stags if they are out on open ground, you are safe, they

will not attack. It is when they are cornered in small Gardens or in

forestry corners, they might attack. This part of Scotland is an

important tourist area and locals are keen to assure visitors that

what happened is a rare events, albeit one that has shocked the

whole community. One worrying aspect is that its antlers may have pierced

her throat and her sister fears she may be left paralysed why this. But

it is early days. Doctors say she is making good progress. They hope to

bring out of the medically induced coma in a few days and they make a

proper assessment. More than 4,000 motorists have been

caught speeding in Northamptonshire in the last year but it's not the

work of the police. Instead volunteers have been out on the

county roads clocking speeding drivers. They can't prosecute anyone

but they say their actions are making a difference. 41 miles an

hour. Doing more than 40 in a 3 . hour. Doing more than 40 in a 30.

More than half a dozen cars this lady caught speeding in just a few

minutes. Volunteers like her, she says, can help the police. We have a

small school and the cars can range from anything from 35, 40. 56 is the

most we have had. We can catch anything up to 40 to 50 cars in an

hour in the morning and at night. If they catch drivers going too fast

the details will be passed to the police who will write to the owners

saying when and where the vehicle was speeding. But that is not enough

to prosecute. We know the registration, the type of vehicle

and what day they are coming through. So we can support the

community with mobile reinforcement. You come and do speed checks

yourself? Yes we can. The driver overtaking here was banned for a

year after being filmed by a camera like this one mounted in another

car. The public helping to prosecute, but not all are convinced

about speed watch volunteers. I don't know. Sometimes they think

they have more power than they think they have. Is a letter strong

enough? No, it is just some silly group. Who are they, them and a

thousand other groups telling you not to speed. There is never a

policeman about when somebody is doing 70, but it is very good. More

than 4000 drivers were caught last year. They do an important job. It

adds a lot of valuable evidence to the parish councils and people in

villages to start looking at ways of stopping speeding through their

areas. They can then identify where the hotspots are and get things put

in place. They don't have the powers of the police, but they can help

stop, they say, drivers speeding through their communities.

Work has started to widen the A14 in Northamptonshire to six lanes. Over

the next few weeks there'll be some overnight closures

poultry. If it works, it would be a major breakthrough in the fight

against poisoning. Still to come: What the sporting

calendar has in store for 2014. And the weekend weather forecast, on a

day when we saw plenty of wintry weather.

The acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard was being remembered

today by her friends and neighbours in Suffolk. In recent years, the

writer lived in Bungay. She died there yesterday at the age of 90.

Today, the best`selling author Louis de Bernieres paid his own tribute,

saying she inspired him to move to the area. Our chief reporter Kim

Riley has spent the day in Bungay, gathering memories of one of our

most talented writers. For more than 20 years since she

moved out of London, this market town has been home to Jane Howard.

Here, the author of 14 novels and three works of nonfiction continued

writing to the very end. Married three times, most famously to fellow

author Kingsley Amis, she never won a major literary prize. But her most

famous works, how about a middle`class English family around

the time of World War II, were hugely popular, and made it to TV

and radio. A young Hugh Bonneville, one of the rising stars. Just two

months ago at this restaurant near her home, a launch party was held

for her fifth novel in the series. I was utterly charmed by her. I

thought she was the most remarkable lady. She was great fun. She did

not, for me, come across as particularly frail. She had a great

commerce sparkly sense of humour. It is thanks to Jane Howard that this

old Rectory is home to novelist Louis de Bernieres. When she heard I

was looking for a house in Sussex near to my family, she said, there

is a wonderful house near here. Why do you not go and look at it? So I

did. That is why I am here. She always said she was my honorary

aunt. My own aunts died, and she appointed herself my aunt. And you

have that in one of the books here. I have, an inscription in one of her

books. To my nephew Louis, from aunt Jane. You will miss your Jane. Very

much. Jane Howard's daughter Nicola told

me her mother had been devastated by the death of her brother Colin last

month. She had become physically very frail, but was mentally strong.

She spent three hours per day every day writing, and was halfway through

her next novel. A prolific writer more and by her many friends.

You can find a full obituary of Elizabeth Jane Howard on the BBC

website. Let's move on to sport, and it's a

busy weekend ahead, starting with the rugby tonight. It's football

tomorrow dominated by the FA Cup. Here's Tom.

It's that time again ` round three of the FA Cup. Some say the

competition's unique. Others admit they could do without it. However,

it remains one of the highlights of the footballing calendar. We have

six sides still in it. Here are the ties. Stevenage, who're bottom of

League One, travel to Doncaster. In`form Ipswich are at home.

Peterborough with a potential banana skin away to non`league

Kidderminster. It's Norwich`Fulham. Southend are at home, with MK Dons

away at last year's winners Wigan. The 1`1 Premier League affair there

sees Fulham back at Carrow Road. I think it is a good distraction. It

is a club competition that everyone looks forward to, we are playing

against top`class opposition, which makes the Tasker even tougher, but

we are at home, so I think it is a good distraction. There isn't

anybody that doesn't enjoy the feel of the FA Cup.

Certainly not every manager agrees, including Norwich's former boss Paul

Lambert. He believes the majority of top`flight clubs would rather not

have the distraction, and that "survival" is the priority. The

debate's certainly raging. It's something you want to try and

progress into. The cup has a special meaning to everybody, and in our

game, everybody wants to win. The FA Cup is a big competition. I think it

is a unique competition. Everyone in world football, you always get the

cup, and nothing is like what we've got in our country.

Rob Butler is BBC Radio Norfolk's football pundit. He joins us now.

Rob, does the FA Cup still matter? Of course. As a Norwich fan growing

up, I had great memories of two semifinals in 1989 and 1992. We lost

both, sadly, but those quarterfinal replay nights when we got through

with some of the most magical night there I have ever experienced, and

have still not been tops. Going back a long way, in the 1959 cup run for

Norwich, when the whole history of the club is built on the FA Cup. It

is a real shame that Paul Lambert, of all people, has decided to

degrade it, almost, with his comments, but as a fan, the FA Cup

means everything. And FA Cup win at Norwich would be great. And for

smaller clubs, the chance to earn an upset, and make some money. Yes, we

know too much about that. Last year, at Norwich, Luton town gamely

and one. The first time in non`league team has beaten a Premier

league team. That was very embarrassing. Yesterday, Chris

Hughton said it was the low point of his Norwich career. Also, fans will

remember when we thrashed Sutton United. The certain players were

clapped off by the Norwich fans that day, and it is great to see MK dons

having a crack, and Wigan Athletic, the FA Cup holders, and

Kidderminster go to Peter Rook, which is a potential banana skin as

well. Thank you very much for that. You can hear more on the BBC Radio

one but their word Norfolk broadcast tomorrow. Andy King has been in

temporary charge at Northampton since the sacking of Aydi Boothroyd,

before Christmas. And you can hear more from Rob and

Still no word from Northampton on their next manager.

In rugby, Northampton play tonight against one of their Premiership

rivals, Harlequins. It's second versus fourth at Franklin's Gardens.

Saints could go top with victory. So they're going for the title. We

have football clubs in promotion and relegation battles. Much to look

forward to in 2014. Golf's Ryder Cup. Football's World Cup and of

course the Commonwealth Games. 17 sports on show in Glasgow, including

gymnastics and shooting. Both have athletes from our region looking to

impress this summer. They are on a roll at this gym club.

British men's champions for years in a row, led by man of the moment Max

Whitlock. 2014 is a big year for Macs and gymnastics. Medals at the

Europeans, the worlds, and the Commonwealth games are there for the

taking. The Commonwealth games are a great competition for us. In the

public eye, it is massive. We just want to go out there and enjoy the

petition. That is what I want to do. And hopefully I can qualify for

the Commonwealth games, because it would be an amazing experience.

Believe it or not, Max and his training planners are out of shape.

Motivated for the year ahead, but carrying a few extra pounds. We

trained a little bit in between Christmas and New Year, and I could

see they were struggling. Gymnastics is one of 17 sports at the

Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Another sport on the programme

requires a little movement as possible, apart from the trigger

finger. From Basildon to Cambridge, where to Britain's best shooters set

their sights on Glasgow. They are team`mates at this club, but in

Glasgow, they could be rivals. The rest will play for England, Jenny

for Wales. I'm pretty sure it will not be much of a rivalry, but at the

end of the day, both of us will come off the podium with smiles on our

faces. Whatever happens, there will be a hug at the end. Jenny has

already been selected, while the rest, 17, is on target to reach her

first major competition and shoot against a training partner. I am

going there for one reason. It will be my first time on the podium. Last

games, I was forth. This time I want to be on the podium. Ultimately,

having someone who can shoot and at every training session, someone who

has that push that just makes you shoot that little bit better, and

one that little bit more, going into a competition with the mindset that

you have trained with, you can't ask for anything better. For our leading

athletes, they have to put a disappointing 12 months behind them.

Robbie Grabarz's initial aim is the indoor Championships in March. In

the same month, Formula one returns, with Red Bull once again favourites

to dominate. There are few who think England's football team will do that

in Brazil this summer. As for England's believe good cricket

captain Alastair Cook, will he still be in charge in June when Sri Lanka

arrive? One thing is sure, Milton Keynes golfer Ian Poulter wants to

spend his summer at Gleneagles, hoping to be Europe's Ryder Cup

talismans again. And as a footnote to that, worth a

quick glance at the top of the Football Conference. Luton and

Cambridge seem to be going head`to`head in the race to be

promoted back to the Football League. The Hatters are unbeaten in

18 matches. The U's start the new year protecting a 100% home record.

Now, severe weather is threatening the weekend's sporting calendar.

Keep an eye on the BBC Sport website for news of cancellation, plus, of

course, your local BBC Radio station.

Now, dare I ask from. Lots of things to look forward to in 2014. What

you're looking forward to? It would be lovely to see Luton or Cambridge

get back into the league. But I am a big golf not, and the Ryder Cup is

very special. Ian Poulter, who has been unbeaten in his last couple of

Ryder Cup matches, to win at Gleneagles will be magic. And your

New Year 's resolution is to tweet more. Seriously! Follow me.

Now, of course, you've seen parts of the country are being battered by

storms and high tides. But it looks as though our region has got away

with it, this time. In our region, the Environment Agency has issued a

number of flood warnings, which means flooding is expected, and

flood alerts, which means flooding is possible. Be prepared. Our

reporter Neil Bradford is at North Bank near Peterborough now.

Good evening. Tonight, the water levels near this sluice have dropped

quite significantly, but the road remains closed only for access and

is likely to do so for some time. Earlier today, the road, which runs

to beat Brad, was submerged. This was one of two areas where flood

warnings remain in place. The other is across the county border in

Northamptonshire. That's at a caravan park which is prone to

flooding. As you can see, the levels of the river there are quite high,

but no damage to property yet. Elsewhere across the region, there

are nine flood alerts in place, which means flooding is possible.

And it is not only flooding. We have had a number of hailstorms across

the region today? Yes, that is right. They viewer sent us this

footage of what he described as a massive hailstorm, which in just a

few minutes, left his Road in South Cambridgeshire in a carpet of

white, and another viewer from Westley is not only got his camera

out, but also his tape measure. He says the hailstones varied in size,

but some were as big as two centimetres in diameter. Of course,

here in the open and land, it is the wind that is causing the problems

tonight. If you are concerned about flooding, however, you can get the

latest information on the Environment Agency website for their

flood line. The screen. Thank you very much. All kinds of weather to

content with today. What can we expect this weekend?

Still unsettled, and the Atlantic continue to throw all it can at the

British Isles. We have got off more likely than other parts of the

country, but today we have had rain, hail, strong wind, blowing in from

the south`west, and costs between 40 and 50 miles an hour. Let's look at

the showers and where they have affected the region. Where there are

bright colours, you can see how heavy they were, but there are less

of them around. So although there is still a risk of show this evening

and overnight, they will be less frequent will stop also, the wind

will become much lighter through the night. Still breezy by the end of

the night, but more of a light to moderate south`westerly by dawn. In

terms of temperature, the Atlantic brings in slightly milder air. For

some of us, we might get down to around three Celsius, but at most,

four or five degrees, keeping us free of the frost. The next area of

rain you can see on the chart is moving in to start Saturday. This is

the pressure pattern for the weekend. You can see low`pressure on

Saturday. The next low winds itself up in the Atlantic to bring some wet

and windy weather later on on Sunday. So although it will not rain

all the time, expect some wet and windy weather right through the

weekend. Having said that, it will not be as windy through tomorrow,

but there will be quite a lot of rain to content with through the

morning. Some of it is on the heavy side. The good news is, it looked as

if it were clear into the afternoon, so for some of us, we cease to be

drier and brighter, particularly across the west by the end of the

day. But in coastal part of Essex and Suffolk, you may well hang on to

some wet and cloudy conditions until much later, before it gradually

clears away, and then we get clearing skies for tomorrow night.

That means it will be a widespread frost, and there is a chance of icy

patches where there has been alien rain. This is our pressure pattern

for Sunday. Huge area of low`pressure filling almost the

whole north Atlantic. It will not as much impact as was previously

thought, but it will bring rain and strong winds on Sunday. Having said

that, much of the daily 's like this. Try and bright weather. We

start next week still unsettled, so just be aware of the frost tomorrow

night. Everything thrown in for good measure.

Have a good weekend. Goodbye.