06/04/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

A coroner's strongly criticised standards at Sowerby House

It was put into special measures after three residents died.

The home says it's now made significant improvements but,

during a two-day inquest in Northallerton, one nurse who'd

worked there said she'd never seen conditions like it.

It was a care home that should have provided safe accommodation.

When three residents died here last year,

Sowerby House in Thirsk was far from perfect.

Today, Michael Oakley, the North Yorkshire coroner,

said standards fell well short of what was expected.

The home he said was inadequately managed and record keeping was poor.

The family of Albert Pooley, one of the residents who died,

feared he wasn't being fed properly or being given enough to drink.

When he died he was emaciated and severely dehydrated.

The coroner has acknowledged the standard of care for Albert

while he was a resident was below the standard expected

We support the ongoing work identified by the CQC to bring

about the required improvements to prevent similar circumstances

The other two residents who died at the home where James Metcalfe

and Harry Kelvington, both were 85.

Today, despite the home being strongly criticised,

the coroner said the deaths of the three men were not

Although Sowerby House has since been downgraded from a care

home to residential, he concluded that all three men had

The inquest did hear from an agency nurse who spent just four hours

She said she had never seen conditions like it.

I came across a man in a room who was eating his breakfast

with the bedside table crawling in ants.

A man covered in urine from head to toe.

It smelt very strongly as if he had been lying there for hours.

The owners of the home say significant improvements

have since been made with new management in place.

Mr Pooley's family has welcomed plans by the CQC to reinspect

Phil Connell, BBC Look North, Sowerby.

Two men who beat a 50-year-old man to death in a flat in Scarborough

Ricky Walker died in the flat in Princess Street last October.

His family described it as an act of pure evil.

Andrew Stevenson will serve at least 28 years in jail

and Clifford Honeymoon a minimum of 25.

She says she's in despair and almost constant pain.

A doctor told Louise Baines she must lose weight otherwise

she couldn't have an operation on her arthritic hip.

Her local NHS in North Yorkshire delays access to routine surgery

for smokers and people who are obese.

Living on a farm means Louise Baines is relatively active but it also

The 40-year-old has arthritis in her hip and has been told

by a private consultant it needs replacing.

But rules introduced by the local NHS in Scarborough and Ryedale mean

patients classified as obese face delays of six months before

they will be referred for surgery, so they can try and lose weight.

I feel like I've been passed over to one side,

I should be enjoying life at 40, enjoying my family and I can't do

An NHS group in North Yorkshire said it could refuse

Similar policies for routine hip and knee operations hit

the headlines when they were adopted elsewhere in North Yorkshire.

CCGs say introducing criteria around patients who are overweight,

or smokers, is clinically driven, better for patients

They have a long-standing problem with finance in Yorkshire.

There is population movement but underlying

it is questions about the formula by which money is distributed.

Some are doing quite well but North Yorkshire

There is definitely more rationing coming in,

This often hits people who have got social and economic

You could say the policies are discriminatory.

NHS England says it is aware of the deficits forecast

by the Clinical Commissioning Groups in North Yorkshire,

and is working with them to find long-term solutions.

The changes around surgery are one small part of a wider plan

being developed by the CCGs to improve their finances.

The challenges remain, with populations that are ageing

Louise is now taking part in a weight-loss programme but fears

she will still need an operation when her six-month wait is over.

More than 100 businesses in Hexham are being taken to court

Traders voted for a business improvement district last year

designed to boost the economy, but some firms say they get

Our correspondent, Mark Denten, has this report.

He has a garage in Hexham but he's just had a ?400 bill

It's decided by a local vote of firms who pay a levy

There are currently a total of five business improvement districts

in our region alongside Hexham, including ones in Newcastle,

In Hexham, the aim is to boost trade and tourism.

But at this garage on an industrial estate, the day-trippers are few

He didn't vote for the scheme and hasn't paid his levy.

And now, along with 150 other businesses in Hexham,

What have you actually got from it so far?

So far, nothing apart from empty promises of some hanging

baskets and extra signage, which a lot of businesses

feel should be the council's responsiblity.

This local businessman staged a one-man protest

I deal with industry, factories, industrial maintenance.

Hexham could turn into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for me.

My business and what I do will not benefit at all.

In the town centre, the pavements are definitely

Nick's wholefood business voted for the levy.

?10,000 of that money's going to be spent on cleaning the streets.

We've argued that streets aren't being cleaned,

and we see that as something that should be paid for by County Hall

But the people behind the scheme say it's working.

Everybody will get something out of the bid.

We have a four-year project programme, a range of projects

including cleaning, improved cleaning in the town,

improved signage and access, making it easier to find businesses

that you actually want to find, things like Christmas lights,

a number of things that will happen over the four years.

Northumberland Council says that this is a tax that is legally

enforceable and that over 80% of traders in the town

Those that haven't will appear in court later this month.

Newcastle's Freeman Hospital is training doctors

The machines revolutionise cancer treatment by allowing

Our correspondent, Peter Harris, reports.

The surgeons sit at a console - they control the robot,

it allows access that was previously impossible.

Yes, I think robotic surgery allows surgeons to do really complex

surgery in narrow spaces with extreme dexterity,

and it also gives surgeons 3D vision so they cause minimal trauma

to adjacent organs, and the patient outcomes are very quick

and the patient recovers very quickly after major cancer surgery.

And there is another benefit, which is the time it takes

for a surgeon to become proficient is reduced by about three quarters.

Do you think surgeons are doing themselves out of a job

At the end of the day, we are controlling the robot,

we may control them from a different venue, from another part

of the world even, so I think we will still be behind the robots.

We were just hearing a talk this morning about the robots now that

are able to do gall bladder surgery themselves, the robot has now been

trained by the surgeon, so maybe one day, ten years down

the line, we'll see a robot that can operate on the throat

and the surgeon doesn't need to take part in it any more, who knows?

The Freeman Hospital is unique in offering robot training

in numerous different kinds of surgery, and for the patients it

will mean more precise cancer treatments and quicker recovery.

High pressure is in charge of the web is spelt in eastern areas,

cloudy west of the Pennines. Enough breeze and patchy cloud to keep

temperatures six or seven Celsius. Weather skies do stay clear, touch

of frost, but that will be isolated. Tomorrow, dry start. Good sunny

spells in the east from the word go and the cloud in the West should

break up much more readily than today. Most places will see a sunny

spells. By the afternoon, the sunshine continues. Temperatures are

not tropical. Highs of 12 or 13 Celsius in the sunshine. High

pressure in charge of the weather. It slips away eastwards over the

next few days. A change in wind direction from a westerly the

south-west and more southerly at times. That should start to lift

temperatures. As we head into the weekend. Saturday a dry day. Not

unbroken sunshine. Blue skies and sunshine for many of us.

Temperatures peaking at 15 or 16 Celsius. By Sunday, this

temperatures climb to rise into the weekend. We'll see

22 Celsius on Sunday. Hello. There was some warm sunshine

around today, but it's set to get even warmer this weekend. 18 Celsius

in London this afternoon. This was the scene in Chiswick, much quieter

than it was on Sunday for the boat race. Under the cloud for example

here in Cumbria, temperatures struggled to make double figures.

Through the night we're going to hang onto a lot of cloud across

north-west England, North Wales, Northern Ireland and western

Scotland, where there will be a bit of drizzle on the breeze. Zero skies

across many southern and eastern parts of England, together with

eastern Scotland and in the countryside again, temperatures

won't be far away from freezing. Just briefly, at the end of the

night, because it will warm up in the sunshine. That's why we have the

best of the early sunshine. The cloud will break up across Wales,

the Midlands and North West England. We may hang onto more cloud in

Northern Ireland and western Scotland will stop with sunshine and

light