17/09/2014 Midlands Today

GP surgeries in crisis across the region

This is the worst crisis we have seen.

We'll be hearing how the problem's equally acute

As the region's jobless figtres fall again,

the Black Country project hdlping women set up their own businesses.

Fall out from the Russian exports ban ` dairy farmers get togdther

People don't realise how much is it is better how much we get. H'm sure

you pay more if you knew. Could a Yes vote for Scottish

independence mean a bigger share of And Warwick Castle looking

resplendent in the morning sunshine. If you're planning on heading

there this weekend, thunderstorms Doctors

across the West Midlands ard warning that GP services are in crisis,

both in rural and urban are`s. In Herefordshire, there are plans to

close two GP surgeries, In Stoke on Trent, there ard

warnings that two practices are also at risk of closure, despite the fact

that some GPs in the city Our health correspondent,

Michele Paduano, reports. It's a scene playing out ag`in

and again across our region, In this surgery in Hereford, they

have spent ?5,500 advertising for I have been a GP for a long time. It

is my 30 year reunion coming up in a couple of weeks. This is without

doubt the worst situation I have seen in primary care in a long time.

I have been in Hereford for 22 years. This is the worst tile for us

going forward. The picturesque village

of Pembridge ` no post office, These children will be the first

to grow up without a surgerx. Branch practices are closing here

and in Eardisley, mums say ht's a mess, but it's the elderly who don't

drive who are in most trouble. It is such a shame in a rur`l

community, that people have to travel such a vast stones. The

majority of people we see using it are elderly member is of thd village

who would be able to walk in themselves.

Nobody was willing to talk to us but NHS England said it was sorry for

the disruption. There was enough capacity for everyone to have a GP

and they are working on new technology to stop people h`ve to

travel. In Stoke on Trent,

the situation is grave. Each GP should look

after 1,600 patients. After recruiting,

the Haymarket Health Centre has We are used to the workload we get.

There is a critical mass at which it becomes are difficult to de`l with

and to deliver except to wh`t you want to deliver. We're not `t

medical mass but there are ` couple of practices that are.

Stoke's MPs have all receivdd a letter saying two anonymots

Joan Walley claims there's ` lack of direction.

We do not have enough GPs coming through at all. It is difficult to

tie down anyone who has responsible at E48.

Extra work load and pension changes mean GPs are retiring earlidr. There

are more women GPs. They ard leaving the profession, on average, aged 39.

My concern is that the systdm starts to fall apart and I would think that

if that is going to happen, it will happen in the next few years. I

cannot see it carrying on lhke it is for the next ten years.

Changes need to be made to recruitment and retention and soon.

And staying with the subject of the NHS under pressure ` West Mhdlands

Ambulance service is holding its annual general meeting tonight.

The service currently emploxs just over 2,200 front`line staff.

Last year, they responded to 921,000 999 calls, an incre`se of

They exceeded the government's targets for

attending the most serious cases, but just missed out on meethng

the target for the less critical cases ` the so called "red twos .

Sarah Falkland is in Birmingham at the ambulance AGM for us tonight.

So is this a good report for the past year?

This is it, the report in qtestion. It is fair to say it is a c`se of

could do better. This is thd first time in six years that West Midlands

Ambulance Service that they have missed that target. Putting it into

context, only half of the trusts managed to get red one and read two

together, so it is difficult. One speaker said it had been a difficult

year but he described it as being a strong platform from which to move

forward. Putting that city tnions today, they said it is a bit like

West Midlands Abingdon servhce is on the end of a diving board, ht is

under that much pressure. They think things could go wrong at anx

moment. The pressure is becoming intolerable. The resources have not

increased and as far as we `re concerned, it is only a matter of

time before things reach a critical level. So what is the answer?

If you speak to the chief executive, he believes part of it relids on

recruitment. They will be 300 new paramedics on the front lind by

mixture. 200 will be starting by Christmas. That is a busy thme for

the Ambulance Service was to I asked if he was confident that if we see

the same increase in the next five years, will the service copd?

Absolutely. That is why, since we were established and we havd worked

hard to make sure we keep up their recruitment plans. We are mhnimising

our functions to invest in the front line and we are continuing to

upscale and resources for stuff that is the condition of our board and

that is what we will be delhvering for the staff. The unions w`nt to

see better public education. We have had some ludicrous cases here in the

West Midlands, people calling in to press us at a pigeon of all things.

They say things need to change. If you come in the next hour, they will

be glad to see you Good to have you with us here

on Midlands Today. It's worth nearly ?20 million to

the local economy, but could this year's Conservative

Party conference be the last in The number of people out of work

in the West Midlands fell bx 9, 00 The unemployment rate

in the region currently stands at 7.1%, which is still

above the national average of 6 2%. But, in Wolverhampton,

a project to help women set up their own businesses is helping

a small number into work. Karolina Cumming has always wanted

to run her own business, but setting A Government grant helped hdr

with some initial costs, but she felt she lacked the knowledge to

get her idea off the ground. She turned to Access to Bushness

for help. We did things like health and

safety, food safety, markethng, social media, all the other, as

well. They were able to givd us the information I needed to open

something of our own. The target was to support 50

women with workshops on how to We offer a lot of support around the

cloud's needs, really. Whatdver the cloud needs to help their journey

into self`employment. It's not only Karolina that

the charity Access to Busindss has They helped me to register ly

business, how to work with ly taxes. I have set up lots of different

websites. I am finding a re`lly good customer base. I thought I knew all

the basics when it came herd but I obviously didn't.

In Birmingham, however, GMB union leaders had a meeting with

the City Council today to dhscuss yesterday's announcement it's to

The council believes it'll need to save more than ?800 million by 018.

It's now looking at new ways of generating income for thd city,

But that means a change in the way it's traditionally pulled

in major money`spinners, such as the political party confdrences.

The Conservatives are due to arrive here in just over a week, btt might

this be the last time they're here for the foreseeable future?

Here's our Political Editor, Patrick Burns.

Feast your eyes because, in a week's time, this whole place will be in a

progressive lock`down. Police and convention centre managers `re

convinced this is Birminghal's moment to bask in the glare of

international publicity, though with no more conferences pl`nned, is

I think the model of the evdnt world is changing somewhat.

People are doing deals in different ways

and I'm sure Birmingham will remain a competitive and compelling venue.

The costs of staging these events are now

This will be the fifth of the main autumn party conferences to be held

here in the space of six ye`rs ` Four Conservative conferencds

It is the last of them that are covered by

a controversial funding deal agreed by the former Conservative`Liberal

Democrat administration on Birmingham City Council.

It means this conference alone is supported by nearly ?1.5 million

from the council ? that is 85% of its entire events budget, dwarfing

I think it is quite wrong for the ratepayer to subsidise the political

parties to have conferences, whether it is here in Birmingham,

I think they have to get re`listic in this day

Inevitably, there are warnings that Birlingham

risks leaving the field widd open to rival conference centres

In a letter to the Birmingh`m Post, one former Conservative grotp

leader accuses the current Labour administration of short`sightedness.

I ask them to review this and try to have more initiative and innovation.

We need to keep the party conferences here in Birmingham.

The political parties are unlikely to abandon the big cities

and take their main events back to outdated seaside venues.

But with budgets squeezed like never before, the pressure is

on for them to demonstrate their true value to the host citids.

Our business correspondent Peter Plisner is in Birmingham for us now.

We've heard from Nicola about women who are starting

Are people opting for self`employment helping to

bring down the unemployment rate in the region?

Well, I think many people think it is. There is a growing trend of

people going self`employed. 3.9 million people were self`employed in

2008, but that has risen substantially. In the last 02 months

13,000 more people in the Wdst Midlands are now self`emploxed. That

is to do with redundancy, pdople using their redundancy monex to set

up new businesses rather th`n take other jobs. What about thesd

proposed cuts at Birmingham City Council? We have been here before,

haven't we? It is sad news. For every public sector job that has

been lost, other jobs have been created in the private sector. In

the West Midlands we have created more private sector jobs ard never

before, we have bucked the trend. We have been talking about the

conferences, is Birmingham likely to lose out? It is easy to say they

will, but we just don't know. The NEC Group say they are still in

active discussions with the parties. They say that the door is

not shot. They point to othdr conferences coming to the chty. The

National Housing Federation are holding their annual conferdnce over

the next few days. We are still attracting some of the big

organisations to the city. The former Euro MP Nikki Sinclaire

has appeared in court chargdd with misconduct in a public office

and money`laundering. The charges relate to travel

expenses which were claimed between 2009 and 2010, when Nikki Shnclaire

was serving as a West Midlands MEP. She's now been bailed to appear

at Birmingham Crown Court I completely refute these charges

and I'm confident of being found innocent.

A helpline has been made av`ilable at Birmingham Children's Hospital

after a former employee admitted sexually

abusing young cancer patients in his care at another hosphtal

Doctor Myles Bradbury is facing jail for abusing boys as young as eight

The doctor worked in Birmingham between 2004 and 2008.

GP surgeries in crisis across the region because

Shefali's all set to tell us about some wonderfully warm,

The young hairdressers benefiting from a special fund set up

in memory of Hollie Gazzard, murdered as she worked in a salon.

Just weeks into the new season, football managers under pressure

after six of our league sidds were beaten last night.

Dairy farmers from around the country gathered

in Telford today for a new national conference aimed just at thdm.

The usual business facilitids were transformed into cattle`pens,

while hotels in the area were reported to be fully booked.

On many farmers' minds todax were the recent falls in the price

of milk, which one Shropshire couple say could drive them out

It was an unlikely setting for 00 cows. The International Centre in

the middle of Telford not unnaturally bovine environmdnt.

Dairy day, claim to be the first UK conference for farmers in this set.

This couple are struggling. Milk prices have crashed and thex have

lost 8p a litre since May. Their income is down ?4500 a month. We

don't know what we are going to do. We might have to give up dahry

farming, but we don't want to do that. We have a passion for dairy

farming. People don't realise when you buy your paint in the shops how

much it is as compared to how much we get. Surely they would p`y more

if they knew. This is their farm. They have 90 cows. For Neal, the

situation is heartbreaking. To be perfectly honest, if maybe the end

of us. I don't want to be dramatic, but it is getting that bad. Experts

say that the global market has started to collapse. The we`ther has

been very good in Europe, Alerica and New Zealand. Milk production is

up and China is buying slightly less. The Russian import ban is

there, too. They were a growing market taking a lot of glob`l dairy

products and they are no longer in the marketplace. Farmers from around

the country have travelled here for a chance to discuss issues `way from

their often isolated environments. Some good news at last! We have just

won the senior class! Brillhant A boost for morale at least, hf not

for their pockets. With a little over 12 hours to go

now until the polls open in the Scottish referendum about

independence, calls are growing for more powers to be given to the

Midlands. Scottish MPs have already been promised that, whatever the

result, they'll get more autonomy from Westminster, with the knock`on

effect that some MPs here would like this region to have greater powers

as well.For the time being, of course, we can only wait until

Friday to find out how Scotland decides, with mixed views today from

people in Coventry and Birmhngham I hope it is unknown. If I was

Scottish, I would say, go, Westminster doesn't do anything for

us. I don't see why they should be governed by people in other parts of

the country. likely to have on us here in the

Midlands? Paul Forrest from the West Midlands Economic Forum has been

taking a look at the numbers and joins me now. Are we likely to be

better or worse off depending on the Both options could be negathve to

the Midlands economy. If Scotland goes for independence they would be

allowed to change their fiscal policy, which would change their

competitiveness against our economy. If they stay within the United

Kingdom the prospects are even more negative because the amount of

subsidies and offers that h`ve been made with the West Midlands had a

complete disadvantage. People talk about the Barnett formula, but any

politician will say... It is a political fix. Would we be better

off if they said yes? Yes. Tnless there is a major re`negotiation of

the asymmetry of devolution in England. So it could be an

opportunity for the region? It could be, yes. There are a lot of claims

that local authorities in Scotland are quite isolated. 80% of the

Scottish population live in the central belt. If you rank

Herefordshire, Staffordshird and Shropshire against Scottish local

authorities they are in the bottom tier. If you look like an

entrepreneurial local counchl dealing with massive cuts btt are

trying to develop the econoly, the economy in Wolverhampton is a

globally leading one in it would be a major incentive. That

could happen if powers were to volunteer. Yes. The Davis commission

required complimentary about the approach of Birmingham Airport and

even though Birmingham is ottside the south`east, Birmingham was a

solution to the problems. If you got rid of the passenger duty, ht would

be an excellent idea. To aspiring hairdressers from Gloucestershire

have become the first to receive funding from the Hollie Gazzard

Trust. Straightening, cutting and colouring, 48 teen

a dream come true. The teen`ger from Gloucester had always wanted to be a

hairdresser at the cost of getting started on a course meant she

couldn't afford fund is hoping to help train other

head dressers to spot the shgns of domestic abuse.

This is how we start the dax tomorrow, on a very misty note. It

will be cloudy across the rdgion. It will be very warm initially and

getting warmer by the end of the day. The temperature could get up to

23 Celsius by the afternoon. Sunshine will break through, which

will post those values. Tomorrow night we will see the humidhty

kicking in and this thunderstorms breaking out. They will continue

into Friday as well, perhaps even Saturday.