26/05/2017 Look East

In Look East this lunchtime. the weekend, and it will be gradually turning fresher for all.

A hospital denies wrongdoing after thousands of people the weekend, and it will be gradually turning fresher for all.

disappeared from its waiting lists.

We have exclusive access to a wind farm development which will power

more than 400,000 homes.

And there'll be lots more sunchine around

at times at the weekend, but we've also had

a weather warning issued.

I'll have the full forecast later on in the programme.

Good afternoon.

Thousands of patients have been left waiting for operations

after a hospital dropped them from waiting lists.

A Look East investigation found 138 patients suffered

some harm as a result.

Kettering General Hospital has denied a whistleblower's claims it

deliberately fiddled its figures.

This from Mike Cartwright.

A hospital already in crisis, in special measures.

And ?25 million in the red.

Now, after a BBC investigation, a hospital found to have lost

track of its patients.

Thousands disappearing off waiting lists.

One of them, Michael, an 84-year-old vicar.

He now can walk comfortably, but only after a two and a half year

painful wait for a hip operation.

I went for pre-op, then they discovered arrhythmia

which is irregular heartbeat, and they said, we can't do that,

it'll be certain death on the operating table.

You must go on warfarin and we will treat it.

Which didn't happen.

I felt I was working my way up the waiting list

but very, very slowly.

I assumed they would be doing their job.

Just assumed I was in the system.

Rather disappointed to find that I'd been dropped off it.

David Phelan is a former hospital manager at Kettering.

An IT expert and now a whistle-blower.

He found that hospital waiting lists there were massively under recorded.

He told senior management.

The waiting list for the hospital was reduced and 40 to 45%

of the patients that should have been on the waiting list were taking

off the waiting list.

The six exclusions that were put on included excluding any patient

who'd been on the waiting list for more than 52 weeks.

Which is disgraceful.

Why were they taken off?

I believe they were taken off to...

certain senior managers wanted to look good to their superiors.

It's thought the hospital lost track of around 6,000 patients.

We asked the trust how many of those had been harmed by not

receiving treatment.

They told us 18.

We questioned that number.

Today, they revised that figure upwards considerably, to 138.

The vast majority of those not harmed seriously, the hospital said.

David Phelan says it was deliberate.

The point about these exclusions is that they were targeted.

It was like a magic bullet.

So for the trust to say that it was accidental

or whatever, it was so specific at excluding significant

numbers of patients.

Those they lost have been found.

All will be treated, the trust said.

But people were waiting months for operations oblivious

they'd been forgotten.

In a statement, Kettering Hospital denied deliberately

manipulating waiting times and blamed computer anomolies.

A spokesman said...

"We believe that all of the patients affected by long waits have

now been identified.

Two men are being questioned on suspicion of murder

after a motorcyclist was killed in a collision with a car.

Stuart Hutchings died on Wednesday after suffering head injuries

on Eastern Avenue North in Northampton.

This morning police said the men, both from Daventry,

had been arrested.

Essex Police have launched their summer anti-drink

and drug driving campaign.

It'll run all of next month.

Officers say it will focus on how it feels for the emergency services

to attend road traffic collisions involving drink or drug drivers.

The BBC has been given exclusive access to a ?1.5 billion wind farm

being built off the Norfolk coast.

The Dudgeon wind farm is around 20 miles off Cromer.

When complete it will power more than 400,000 homes

around Great Yarmouth.

These giants in the sea are the latest example

of the UK's increasing use of offshore wind energy.

When complete, the 67 turbine Dudgeon wind farm off the Norfolk

coast will power nearly half a million homes in the Great

Yarmouth area and it's also creating jobs.

In Great Yarmouth, we will have some 70 permanent people

employed at Dudgeon.

It's the closest port to us and it's an efficient existing

port when we chose it.

But it's important for us and globally important

to Great Yarmouth I think as well.

The different parts of these wind turbines have been

manufactured all over Europe, including Spain, the

Netherlands and Denmark.

They were brought together in Hull and partly assembled,

and then loaded onto this ship, the Sea Challenger,

and finally brought here, 20 miles off the Norfolk coast.

Once the parts are brought to the site, they take

just 24 hours to build.

And their size is awe-inspiring.

The installations themselves are impressive, huge,

from the water level and up to the top of the blade,

it's 184 metres.

These nozzles where the blades are held into are so big that

you can actually park two double-decker buses in them.

The first working turbines here are already powering thousands

of homes, and once finished at the end of this year,

the Dudgeon wind farm is expected to operate for at least 25 years.

In sport, Northampton Saints will have extra security measures

in place for their European Champions Cup play-off

final with French club Stad Francais this evening.

The club says fans should allow extra time to get

into Franklin's Gardens and be prepared for queues.

A win for Saints will earn them a place in next

season's Champions Cup, the top tier European

rugby union competition.

They've got some real world-class players,

I think their pack are very very strong, their halfbacks are good.

And then they can finish out wide.

So we're going to have to play to our best, and if we do that,

there's no doubt we can win.

The University of Cambridge has appointed the world's

first Professor of Lego.

Professor Paul Ramchandani, a specialist in child development,

will work at the university's centre for play in education,

development and learning.

The department was established two years ago with a ?4 million grant

from the Lego Foundation.

Now, it's another hot day out there but will it continue over

the Bank Holiday weekend?

Here's the weather with Elizabeth Rizzini.

Here's the weather with Elizabeth Rizzini.

Hello, good afternoon.

It's particularly glorious outside today, lots of

blue sky and sunshine.

A bit cooler towards coastal areas, but inland temperatures

are certainly rising.

But is the heat going to hang on for the bank holiday weekend?

Well, I think for some of us, it will do.

It's certainly looking like a warm start, very warm again tomorrow,

perhaps a touch fresher by the time we get to Sunday in some places,

we could see a cooler bank holiday Monday as well.

We're also going to see some heavy, thundery downpours.

All the detail on that in just a moment, some

thunder and lightning, but there'll also be

plenty of sunshine too.

Let's go back to this afternoon, the sun will continue to shine

for the rest of the afternoon, it's going to be a lovely

evening as well.

Watch out, because the UV levels are high.

You could get burned quite quickly.

We've got a fairly brisk south-easterly wind so coastal areas

are going to be cool.

The highest of today's temperatures will of course be inland.

26 or maybe even 27 Celsius.

So sunshine hanging on until this evening.

With the sun setting around about nine o'clock these days.

Overnight tonight, it could be an uncomfortable

night's sleep for some, certainly feeling quite muggy

as we head towards tomorrow morning.

Overnight lows of about 15 to 17 degrees.

Staying dry and clear, but you might just see a few showers

creeping in behind me.

We're likely to see some showers through the middle part of the day,

not for everywhere but certainly somewhere across the East.

We will get some showers, we might even get a rumble or two of thunder.

And then it will clear away quite quickly to leave

us with a lovely dry, sunny afternoon for the most part,

and again, some pretty high values.

26 or 27 Celsius.

Once more, it will be a little bit cooler towards the coast

and we might see a little bit of coastal fog lapping ashore

at times towards the North.

For the moment it's only a small possibility.

Now, it wouldn't be bank holiday weekend without a weather warning.

We do have one for bank holiday Monday, this is to cover the period

between midday on Sunday into bank holiday Monday.

We could see some heavy, thundery showers.

It's likely to be a dry start to Sunday, it will feel

just a touch fresher, there will be some cloud around.

Many of us will get away with a dry day but there's a risk of some

showers spreading up from the south as we head towards the late

afternoon and into the evening and for the overnight

period as well.

The showers should clear away on Monday, many of us

should see a dry day.

That's all from us for now, we'll be back with Look East at 6.30pm.

Have a good afternoon.

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