22/03/2017 Look East (West)

In Look East tonight:

Closing the doors on patients.

The urgent care centre warning it will have to shut

amid cash shortages.

All we're asking for is the legally accepted

minimum tariff for this kind of service.

We're not asking for anything else, we're asking for the minimum.

It's being hailed a fairer school funding formula

but some teachers claim it will leave them worse off.

And rain lingering this evening and overnight.

I will have all the details later.

Hello, good evening.

Managers of Corby's Urgent Care Centre say they'll have

to close it from next week because they're not

being properly funded.

The centre was set up to relieve pressure on hospitals

and treats over 70,000 patients a year.

The group that pays for the service say they'll find another

provider to run it.

Mousumi Bakshi reports.

It was championed as a beacon of care in an NHS that's struggling to

keep up with patient demand at nearby Kettering Hospital.

But is that beacon about to be extinguished?

Corby's Urgent Care Centre keeps patients out of A

by treating urgent but not critical conditions like fractures.

Demand is at an all-time high.

The number of patients we should be seeing and we're kind of geared

to see is about 140, 147 patients per day

but it has been increasing and that increase has been a steady rise

over a long period of time, with sort of peaks

and troughs in between.

It is not unusual for us to be seeing in excess

of 240 patients in a day.

But now a row over funding threatens the service.

Doctors say they're running the centre at a loss,

receiving around ?44 per patient when the NHS

should be paying them ?57.

Lakeside, the company that staffs the centre, is adamant its doors

will close next Friday.

Not so, say local health care bosses.

In a statement, they told us...

All we're asking for is the legally accepted minimum tariff

for this kind of service.

We're not asking for anything else, we're asking for the minimum.

It's a bit like asking for the minimum wage.

We think we deserve that.

I'm sure the people who use the service

would say it's definitely worth the minimum.

And that's all we want.

Today, patients gave their reaction to the news.

This is the best place they ever opened,

to be fair.

I suffer with a long-term illness anyway so it's handy for me

if I am ill to come down here rather than go to Kettering.

It does serve a good purpose to a lot of people in general,

I'd say.

With just days to resolve this situation, there is

confusion, not only for staff but the estimated 73,000 people

who use this centre.

Mousumi Bakshi, BBC Look East.

Next tonight, it was designed to make education funding fairer

but the government's new system for allocating money

to schools has been criticised by headteachers in our region.

It's a complex formula but it'll mean just over

900 schools in our patch get more money

and just over 550 would get less.

Broadly speaking, schools in Bedford would be the biggest winners

but those in Luton will lose the most.

Anna Todd reports.

Underline the part that you think needs improvement.

What else could they have added?

An English lesson, how to improve your work.

Something headteachers in Cambridgeshire and

13 other counties are asking the government to do.

They say the new national funding formula may give

historically underfunded schools some extra money but doesn't take

into account the non-negotiable and rising costs that all schools face.

Swavesey Village College has 1270 pupils on its books

and it has an annual budget of ?6 million.

Now, under the new funding formula, it's going to get

an extra ?10,000 a year.

But with the non-negotiables, like inflation,

salary increases, national insurance, pensions

and the apprenticeship levy, they're going to lose

almost ?500,000 by the year 2023.

And that ?10,000 becomes small change.

The Government has not looked at what it actually costs to run

a school on, you know, at the basic level.

And if you're not in an area of deprivation or have high levels

of deprivation which will enhance the budget to absolutely rightly

allow you to meet those additional pressures, then the amount

that is being proposed is not enough to run a school.

In their joint letter to the government, headteachers

described the situation as bleak.

Criticising the government for spending in areas like

grammar school expansion and for assuming schools all

have further efficiencies to make.

Most schools that I know are working to the bone

in terms of financial efficiency, many schools have made redundancies,

they're looking at their courses they're running,

they're looking at the opportunities they can

offer their children because at the end of the day,

they have to manage and balance their budgets.

In our region, many areas, including Bedford Borough and

Milton Keynes, would see a significant rise in their funding.

But Luton, which is historically well funded, would see all

but three schools lose money.

The Prime Minister this afternoon was

trying to justify it to say that this will really be the most

fairest way of doing the fundings.

But this isn't because you're hitting the

poorest families and the poorest areas of the towns and that's

what I think is the total unfairness of whole,

this funding formula.

The extra ?10,000 for Swavesey Village College could pay

for another teacher two days a week.

But with so many other costs in the next few years,

12 teachers could actually be made redundant.

Headteachers say to make this formula work, the education pot

needs a lot more money in it.

Anna Todd, BBC Look East, Cambridgeshire.

The Department for Education released a statement in response

today saying,

"School funding is at its highest level on record.

We are consulting schools, governors, local authorities

and parents to make sure we get this formula right, so that every

pound of the investment we make in education has

the greatest impact."

A hospital has apologised after it missed opportunities to correctly

diagnose a Wellingborough father who's now dying of bone cancer.

A scan was carried out on 34-year-old David Kinnie

two years ago, but his tumour was mistaken for a blood clot.

Michele Paduano reports.

Frankie will be four in August.

Throughout his life, Daddy's been ill.

But no one knew why.

It was only in October last year, when it was too late,

that doctors found the tumour.

I want to be here to watch my little boy grow up.

I don't want him to look at pictures

and not know who I am.

For seven years, David has been under the care of

University Hospital Coventry.

He was given physiotherapy for a irregular hip

for a year and had two operations cancelled.

Having been together all that time, he and Vikki are planning a wedding.

I want the hospital to recognise that

they can't keep doing this to people.

David, to them, is a number.

To me, he's my whole life.

It's happening too much, they're missing,

they're missing massive signs...

Documents seen by the BBC indicate an MRI

in January 2015 found the tumour

but it was thought to be a blood clot.

Bone cancers are typically slower growing and

metastasise later on, so obviously if we're looking at

a two-year delay then possibly,

you know, certainly would hope that David's life

could've been saved.

The hospital has apologised unreservedly

for the distress caused.

The trust medical director Professor Meghana Pandit said

a full investigation had looked into the opportunities

to find the cancer earlier.

She wanted to talk to the family about this and the actions

taken to improve care for all patients.

Bone cancer is rare, only 600 cases a year,

but experts say too often it's diagnosed too late.

A survey showed nearly one in four visited their GP

more than five times.

One in three saw three or more health care professionals

and almost half had to go to A at least once.

David is determined to fight for as long as he can to stay

with his family.

The mother of a baby who died at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital

has told an inquest into his death that had he been given competent

and timely care he would have survived.

Nathalie Aubry-Stacey heard

her ten month old son Leo died after suffering from a bowel

condition which needed surgery.

He was due to be transferred to Great Ormond Street hospital

when he suffered a cardiac arrest.

One of the doctors who treated him told the court his death

was unexpected, and they did all they could to save his life.

The inquest will continue tomorrow.

Sport - and a big night for ice hockey as two of our teams

began their play off campaigns.

Peterborough Phantoms got off to a great start with a 12-0 home

win against Sheffield Steeldogs.

A good night for MK Lightning too,

they beat Swindon Wildcats at home 5-1.

The Play Offs is a stand-alone tournament at the end

of the regular season.

Both Lightning and Phantoms have another five group games,

before hopefully progressing to the finals in two weeks' time.

And that's the late news from Look East.

I'll leave you with the weather with Alex.

Hello there.

A cloudy picture across the region at the moment with

further outbreaks of rain possible as we go through the night.

Gradually clearing to the west and the rest

of the night does look as though it will be dry

with some clear spells and quite misty in places.

Temperatures could get down as low as four Celsius for some of us

and there'll be a light north-easterly wind.

And that wind will pick up through the day tomorrow,

it's going to make it feel a little bit chilly, although

there should be some good spells of sunshine through tomorrow.

This weather system being pushed to the south

by this larger area of high pressure, that is going to dominate

our weather over the next few days.

So maybe a cloudy start, but some good spells

of sunshine as the day goes on.

A bit of a nagging north-easterly breeze but in the

sunshine, temperatures getting to 11, perhaps 12 Celsius.

And those winds should ease as we get into the afternoon.

The national weather is coming up

but here's the outlook.

And high pressure continues to build for Friday and into the weekend,

bringing some fine weather, with some good spells of sunshine.

Although it will be a little bit chilly overnight.