27/03/2014 South Today

Hello, good to have you with us. A over on the BBC News

Hello, good to have you with us. A BBC investigation has discovered

that St Mary's hospital on the Isle of Wight has no consultants at all

on its wards on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The investigation looked

at staffing over one weekend in December.

Maria Lynch is an emergency consultant on the Isle of Wight. She

works one weekend every month ` on the ward in the morning and on call

in the afternoon, when often there are no consultants in the hospital

at all. Every weekend one of us will be here from 8am and we take a

handover from the night registrar and we work through until around

lunchtime. At that point, we may go home and have lunch and we can get

called back for all major trauma, burns, accidents on the road. We

come back for every sort of event. This patient has broken his ankle.

A is one area where the NHS believes weekend cover is especially

important. But for small hospitals like this one, that's difficult. The

total number of consultants working here is 80 and actually there

wouldn't be that much work for those consultants to do even if they were

here. Never mind the cost involved of putting on that level of cover.

Many larger hospitals do have consultants working on the wards at

weekends and even operating. This team at Southampton General are

doing regular brain surgery procedures on Saturdays. I think

there are some people like myself and the anaesthetic team who

actually might prefer to work the odd Saturday. It is an efficient,

effective list and is quite enjoyable. The NHS wants to see more

of this to help improve patient care throughout the week. This whole

argument goes beyond hospitals. It goes into the availability of

primary care at the weekends and also the availability of community

and social services. So the hospitals are simply one component

of a much bigger issue that we have to tackle on behalf of our society.

For smaller hospitals like St Mary's, recruiting consultants isn't

easy and working them at weekends will cost an extra ?2 or ?3 million

a year. Detectives are investigating

allegations Jimmy Savile abused children at two children's homes in

the south. Police and local authorities are looking into

incidents at Broomfield Children's Home in Guildford and an unnamed

children's home in Bournemouth. Jimmy Savile adored the view from

his holiday flat in East Cliff, a flat he bought in the 1970s and

owned until his death. Bournemouth I find a very gentle place, full of

very nice gentle people and very, very attractive ladies, thank

goodness! Chilling words by a man police have since labelled as a

prolific sex offender. A man often spotted running along the seafront

here. Now the Department for Education has asked the council to

investigate a single historic allegation of abuse carried out at a

local children's home. We have been given the witness's statement and we

have been given some guidance about our role in terms of investigating

that allegation and reporting procedures back to the Department

for Education. Do you know the name of the home involved? No, we don't.

We have very sketchy information about the time scales, the home and

that obviously will be our urgent priority to establish the facts as

soon as we can. As well as his holiday flat, Jimmy Savile had

business interests in Bournemouth and it is thought he owned this

entire block at one time, renting out flats. It is not known how long

the investigation by the council will take. That depends whether they

find any truth in the allegation and whether or not this single

allegation leads to any others. A man arrested in connection with

human trafficking in Bournemouth has been released on bail. Police raided

a garage as part of an investigation into forced labour. Six men aged

between 20 and 30 were taken to a safe house. Locals say the car wash

was busy at all hours and recently men had started living in a caravan

on the site. As we revealed yesterday, there was

confirmation today of plans to extend Crossrail to Reading when it

opens in five years. Two trains an hour into central London will bring

thousands of extra rush hour seats into use on one of the country's

most congested routes. But it'll take 50 minutes to get into the

capital, twice as long as the fast service.

I do not have to get out to change. Half of the journey is, is the

connection going to be there? Standing on the platform wondering

if the tube is delayed. I would prefer to have a relaxing journey.

It will not make a difference as it is not going to be as fast. I go

from Oxford to London which takes around 25 minutes, so I do not think

it is going to be of any helpful is top.

The editor of the Reading Chronicle has been suspended and an

investigation launched by the newspaper's publishers after it ran

a front page about hooliganism at the town's football club. Last week

the newspaper upset Royals fans and the club chairman who called the

article an "unwarranted attack". An apology was then made by the paper

online. Today the newspaper apologised on its front page, saying

Reading fans have a well deserved good reputation.

Portsmouth Football Club have sacked manager Richie Barker. Pompey have

won just four of 20 matches in which he's been in charge and face a fight

to avoid relegation out of the football league. Andy Awford has

been appointed caretaker manager and has seven games to turn their

fortunes round. Ritchie was the wrong person in the wrong place at

the wrong time. He didn't fit the Portsmouth mould. We had to act. It

wasn't a case of more time. We don't want to be in the Football

Conference next year. We want to be in the Football League.

That's all from me for now. Most places will be frost free and

any showers will tend is although we're expecting a few more into the

south and areas west of the Isle of Wight where that could be thunder. A

dry start for much of the region although showers will remain in

place for the south`west, the Isle of Wight and western parts of

Hampshire. One or two could drift inland. Some sunshine, but more

cloud than son. As we head towards the weekend, temperatures are on the

up. Possibly up to 18. The sunshine will be hazy and there will be a lot

of cloud. The National weather is next.

weather. Now the national forecast with Nick Miller.

Hello, as winter becomes spring, the atmosphere contains more energy. The

shower clouds grow taller. If conditions are right, you get

thunder storms. There have been some today. Bob took this picture near

London this afternoon. The spring flowers will appreciate the re turn

return of warmth. Until then big showers to come, pushing in across

south-west England - some hail and thunder. Sleet and