13/01/2014 Spotlight

showers in the west and south. That's all from the

The patients whose operations are being postponed because there aren't

enough beds at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Good evening. Critics blame Cornwall Council for delays in arranging care

packages in the community. We'll hear from one patient caught up in

the system. I cannot blame the hospital, the

staff, they were brilliant. They could not have done anything better.

What upset me was that I had the bed and then it was taken away.

I'll be putting the concerns raised to the new Chief Executive of

Cornwall Council. Meanwhile, we'll have the latest on

Alex. We reported before Christmas that doctors said he was well enough

to go home in September, but he's still in hospital.

And the debris brought ashore by the storms, but who should clear it up?

Residents take action, because they say the council hasn't.

Cornwall Council says it is making "as big an effort as possible" to

resolve the row over bed blocking in the county's hospitals. At the end

of December, the Royal Cornwall Hospital had over 100 beds blocked `

twice the national average. It means operations have been postponed

because the hospital is unable to discharge people and free up tents.

`` beds. Health agencies and MPs have accused the council of

communication problems. In a moment we'll hear from its new Chief

Executive, but first Tamsin Melville reports.

Just after New Year, 84`year`old Florence's knee operation at the

Royal, all hospital was cancelled at the last minute because there was no

bed for her. I was looking forward to going in to get rid of the pain.

I cannot blame the hospital, the staff, they were brilliant. They

could not have done anything better. What upset me was that I had the bed

then it was taken away. In a week before New Year at the

Royal, all alone there were more than 100 beds blocked, twice the

national average. That is despite a plan to improve the communication

system after 14 operations had to be cancelled on one day in October.

This has prompted accusations that council was to blame for failure is

on providing on word care needed to get people off of the wards,

something it has denied. But we were told at continuing lack of

coordination and communication by the candle has had a detrimental

effect on terror across the country. `` County. Care.

Really, that overall planning role is the responsibility of the health

and well`being board, to make sure that process is underway. It could

be that other partners in Cornwall are actually delivering the

services, that it is that coordination around the individual

runner and rent the family. `` around the individual and around the

family. Cornwall Council says it is delivering the care packages needed.

Well, Andrew Kerr is the new Chief Executive of Cornwall Council. I

asked him what the authority is doing to improve care provision in

the community to relieve the pressure on the Royal Cornwall

Hospital. The only solution is our ones in

which the health service and local authority work very closely together

to make sure that both people going into hospital and people coming out

of hospital are dealt with in a joined up fashion. That is what

we're working to do right now. Cornwall Council has been warned

time and again about this problem, yet only last week Cornwall partners

in care said a lack of communication and coordination by the candle has

had adapted, `` detrimental effect on terror across the county.

Why is the candle not learning lessons quicker and making things

better two well, I am only five days into my work on the council.

I can say that we are making as big an effort as possible to make sure

those communications issues, where they exist, are resolved. Actually,

the solution is going to be one where both parties work together and

that depends on communication from both sides. What would you say to

those currently held up in the system able to leave hospital but

cannot because there is not the care provision in the county for them

outside of the hospital? And those having operations delayed

because they cannot get into hospital. We are trying to resolve

this as quickly as possible. This is a very long`term problem, right

across the UK, which needs to be resolved nationally and locally.

We are one of the 14 council areas in the country trying to resolve it

quicker for the people of Cornwall. On a broader point before we

finish, what sort of shape you think the council was in at the moment?

What are your hopes for it going forward? I think I have inherited a

council in quite robust shape. We have managed since the unitary

authority began to save ?170 million, and it looks like we are

going to have to save a similar sum of money again. However, I think the

council was in good shape to do that, we are trying to do things

differently, without more locally driven services, and hopefully that

will be the agenda and the next few years. Thank you for joining us.

A`ten`year old boy is still in Plymouth's Derriford hospital

tonight four months after his mum was told he was well enough to go

home to Cornwall. Alex Dieterle has cerebral palsy, but a problem with

his package of care at home meant he spent Christmas in one of the

children's wards. It was the week before Christmas when Spotlight

featured the story of Alex Dieterle, ten`year`old with cerebral

palsy. Alex arrived with a chest infection

in September. He quickly got over this but is stuck in hospital ever

since because of problems sorting out his home health care. We could

not film Alex today because he was not very well. He has a flu type of

bug, it is sitting on his chest which is very dangerous for him, and

if it turns into a chest infection he has to fight really hard to get

rid of it. Children such as Alex can actually

die from chest infections, and do frequently. It does feel like he is

a sitting duck on the ward at the moment. All the more reason his

mother wants Alex to come home. That is taking time.

In a statement, NHS Kernow and Cornwall Hospital said they are

committed to getting Alex discharged as soon as possible. The statement

went on, however, Alex cannot be discharge from hospital until a safe

package of care is put in place that meets both his and his mum's needs.

We remain in constant contact with Alex's family.

For Joe, it is frustrating, as time with Alex is precious.

I cannot replace the time he has wasted in here, and I just hope when

we finally get home I have longer to spend with him for him to enjoy his

life. Police are appealing for witnesses

to a fatal crash in Plymouth which closed off a busy road into the city

for more than ten hours. A car hit a road sign near Marsh Mills early on

Saturday morning. It was being driven by a 25`year`old local man.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. The road was sealed off for accident

investigation work to be carried out.

The recent storms have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of

rubbish being washed up on South West beaches. In Dorset around 100

volunteers have taken part in a major clear`up of the county's

Chesil beach after it was covered in debris including a dead cow. They

said they felt compelled to act because the authorities didn't.

Hamish Marshall reports. We've striven by strong winds put

Portland in the eye of the storm. But even when the weather eased,

this was the result. Rubbish that of the sea bed and more of it with

every high tide. This woman saw pictures of the

rubbish on Jessel Beach and got everything to help hundreds of

others clear it on Saturday. Not only does it affect our beautiful

area, but the animals, the wildlife, the nature. More rubbish has been

washed up in the days that followed and if we left it there would be

more and more. It was so important to deal with it immediately. Word of

the state of the beach and the clean`up operation spread through

the internet. Tom Randall and his twin brother

spent the weekend dragging rubbish from the beach. This is not even

half of what was brought up. It was hard work to Saturday. I came down

your around half past nine, and I left around four o'clock in the

afternoon. I came back again on Sunday and it

was hard work. It made you feel good inside, it really did.

But four days since it was first reported, this head cow has not been

moved. There are concerns that local authorities have done little in

response. At the very least, a council officer could have been here

to coordinate efforts to assist us. One of the volunteers had to

instruct and organise which ticket to put their saw that things go to

the right place once they are binned. As you see, nothing has been

binned, nothing has been moved from the beach, we still have a dead cow

here. Dorset waste partnership told us it is not its duty. It said it

has been in contact with the landowner, the Crown estate, to

offer advice. It says it will work with

contractors to clear and dispose of the waste and dead animals as soon

as possible, but with every tide the gets bigger.

`` the problem gets bigger. As well as a dramatic increase in

rubbish, the recent storms have had a profound effect on the South West

coastline, with rock formations which have stood in place for

possibly thousands of years being swept away. There has also been a

big impact on the livelihoods of some people living and working

around our coasts as Our Environment Correspondent, Adrian Campbell, has

been finding out. The storms over Christmas and New

Year brought remarkable scenes to our shores. Coastal communities were

under attack from the elements. Several people have lost their

lives. Traders were said for the missing 18`year`old photography

student Harry Martin after a body was found on Saturday. All around

the region, livelihoods have been damaged, including at this each cafe

in Cornwall. It was quite devastating to have to clear the

place up once, not once, not twice but three times.

Physically sick, to be honest. There is nothing I can do, it is totally

out of my hands. The Met Office warned us in advance

there were exceptionally cold conditions over North America and

that was colliding with warmer air in the Atlantic. It brought a series

of intense storms directly to the South West. For much of December

into the New Year we have had heavy rainfall and flooding. Unusually

strong winds came here on the Jetstream, high in the atmosphere.

Over the last three or four weeks we have seen Jetstreams over 200 knots,

which is unprecedented. There is a lot of energy and it tends to guide

in storm is a lot of energy and it tends to guide in storms one after

the other. Nicky is one of many whose lives have been changed by the

storms. It is just the beginning of putting

it right. Fingers crossed, in a couple of

weeks it doesn't all happen again. Some have questioned whether what we

have seen so far this winter can be linked to the possibility of climate

change, or whether we have simply experienced a run of highly

destructive storms. And you can see the full version of

Adrian's report on Inside Out tonight at 7:30pm here on BBC One.

Contractors are due to move hundreds of tonnes of sand which has piled up

against beach side properties in St Ives. People living at Porthmeor

Beach say the sand is around ten feet above its normal level for this

time of year. They believe it may have contributed to the flooding of

several homes in last weeks extreme weather. David George has this

report though. Flats and apartments overlooking

Porthmeor Beach near the Tate Gallery have some of the best views

in Cornwall, but last week's combination of high tides, low

pressure and wind, but the sea crashing through the windows and

doors into several homes. It hit bang on and caused an almighty

crash. The impact did this. Completely

cracked the old wooden frame. We are lucky the whole thing didn't

collapse, but the water took about 30 seconds or a minute before it

rained back again. Then we were sort of standing here wondering, my God,

if that was one we've come are more coming? Sure enough, another wave

came, smashed its way through there, right through the back door and

completely flooded the whole of number two.

It is approaching high water now, but a week ago during the storm the

high tide came right up to here. Some residents blame the level of

this sand. 18 inches below the balcony now, but it is normally,

they say, around ten feet below this level.

Residents called on Cornwall Council to take urgent action during the

storm as high tides and stronger winds were forecast.

This was a 12 foot swell backed by 28 mph winds. The next one was

predicted to be 48 mph and a 22 foot swell. We were in trepidation so we

moved everything out of the flat upstairs.

Council officials said they could not take any action while the storm

was still raging. There were two concerns, the first was that we

thought the sun was protecting the foundations of the older sea wall

and if it had been moved that would have been catastrophic damage to the

properties. There is also the real issue of

health and safety of the people employed to do that. The storm was

prevailing and there was a short period of opportunity to get people

onto the beach to do the work. Con mole council says work will begin on

removing some of the sand later this week.

`` Cornwall Council. Meanwhile, the Environment Agency

has warned tonight that more forecast rain could bring further

flooding to the Somerset Levels. Water levels on the moorland are

falling slightly. But roads remain closed, houses are still waterlogged

and one village is still cut off. Here's our Somerset Correspondent,

Clinton Rogers. James's family have farmed on the

Somerset levels for 150 years. Only three times in living memory has

their farm flooded. And all since 2000. Taking the BBC to a high fan

Page point on the Somerset levels, he explained what he thought was the

reason. That is the town, and this is where they merge.

It is like a motorway, when you have a motorway that goes down to one

lane, you get a pile`up. This is where you have all the traffic

flowing out over either side, because it cannot get away. That, he

says, is simply because they have stopped dredging the rivers.

Clearing them of a build`up of silt which really comes in with the tide

of the Severn estuary. If you leave it, the rivers clog up and hold less

water. The result, say many, is this. The Environment Agency is the

organisation responsible for the rivers. When I cornered Lord Smith,

then chairman of the agency come on a visit to Somerset more than one

year ago, he did commit to dredging. Eventually. What we need to do is

find out here were the best places to dredge going to be, then get on

and do it. When? I as soon as possible.

Fine? I would be very disappointed if we were not seen some improvement

happening in the course of the next six months.

But all that has happened since then is a pilot project on small sections

of the rivers. The agency has agreed that further dredging would ease

flooding. But there is no money for it.

They reckon that to dredge just ten kilometres would cost ?4 million.

And in spite of appeals for help to organisations and local companies,

so far they have only raised 1 million. No money, no dredging. We

could well be back here again next year.

A family from Cornwall whose eldest son died just over a year ago now

face and move to a smaller property after having housing benefit

reduced. The change to the benefits system was introduced by the

Government last April. But the Chapman family believe the situation

is unfair, and that exceptional circumstances should be taken into

consideration. Spotlight's Heidi Davey reports.

Dawn and Adam Chapman are still adjusting to life without Caleb.

Their eldest son died after being hit by a car while going to catch

the school bus back in December 2012. The couple, along with their

two other children, live in a local authority three`bedroom house in

Hayle. Two`year`old Eva has a bedroom and

five`year`old Ashton, who used to share with his older brother, also

has his own room. But since Government changes last April,

families deemed to have too much living space receive a reduced

payment, and a year on from losing Caleb the Chapmans are being asked

to pay to keep their third headroom as the two youngest siblings are

deemed eligible to share a room. It is not the case that he has moved

out and gone to uni or something. What has happened is tragic in

itself, but then to get this letter saying they want to charge us for

bedroom tax because of what has happened to our eldest son, and we

still have a boy and girl left, it is ridiculous.

Devon and Cornwall Housing says it is extremism are fit for the

family's circumstances and will continue to work with them to

explore a long`term solution that is acceptable to them. `` it is

extremely sympathetic to the family's circumstances.

I am a self`employed hairdresser. In time, once I'm fully established,

we'll be able to pay full rent and council tax, we will not need to go

through anything like this. We just need a bit of help, just for now,

just to get us where we want to be and then we will be absolutely fine.

Since the bill was issued in December, Devon and Cornwall Housing

and Cornwall Council have secured a discretionary payment for the family

to cover the extra cost until April. The local authority added that the

policy around housing benefit is set by Central Government and

administered by local authorities. Cornwall Council's benefits team has

been in contact with the family to offer advice and assistance. We are

now working to provide longer term solutions.

Whether that will be enough for Dawn and Adam remains to be seen. They

believe every case should be looked at individually.

Time now for the sport, and Chris Hargreaves takes pole position

tonight after his first win as a manager. He does indeed. Hello,

everybody. The 41`year`old steered his new

club, Torquay United, to a vital three points at AFC Wimbledon to

give them fresh impetus in their bid to stave off relegation from the

Football League. I'm afraid that was the only success from the weekend,

as told by the managers and BBC Radio Devon.

The usual football statements come in, half a job, not finished yet,

but the general mentality was that the fight was there today come and

that is what we need. I am under no illusions how hard this job will be.

Until the end of the season comment is going to be tough.

They are one of the better teams in the division and we have matched

them. It is a big plus for us. I think we are improving hell of a

lot. We just have to maintain that to get where we want to be at the

end of the season. Full credit to the players, we are playing all

right at the moment. That is a nice ball into the box, and it is in the

net! Extraordinary, it has gone in. It

could be an own goal but David Wheeler is going to claim it. City

lead 1`0. Puts it into the bottom right hand corner.

Rovers are possibly round the back, in comes the cross! Amazing!

For the second time in two games, O'Toole has scored the winning goal

for Bristol Rovers in time added on. We know that we have it in us, we

are not 1 million miles away from where we need to be, but if you make

mistakes against top teams then the punish you. We need to bad mistakes

from the two goals. `` we made two bad mistakes. We did get a goal in

the end, that was good. Exeter Chiefs' 15`10 home loss to

Glasgow Warriors in rugby's European Cup confirmed their exit from the

tournament. The Chiefs were ten points to the good through Fetu'u

Vainikolo's effort. But the Warriors wiped that out with two tries of

their own at Sandy Park. However, Exeter still have the slightest of

chances of making it to the European Challenge Cup if they earn a bonus

point win at Cardiff Blues this Saturday.

Staying with rugby, Plymouth Albion are almost certain to qualify for

the quarterfinals of the British and Irish Cup. Their 39`3 stroll over

Stirling County maintains their top position. The leaders go through,

but even if Albion lose their final tie at Nottingham, they could still

progress as one of the best runners`up.

The Cornish Pirates look to make it a clean sweep of six wins out of six

as their berth in the last eight is already guaranteed. Well done, the

Cornish Pirates. Finally, tomorrow night Plymouth Argyle try to reach

round four of the FA Cup against Port Vale at Home Park in a third

round replay. There's full coverage on all BBC Radio Devon frequencies

from 7:05pm. There have been reports of a mini

tornado in the South Devon town of Kingsbridge. Several buildings in

the town centre had slates blown off this afternoon. Eyewitnesses said

the freak event lasted about a minute and a half. Bridge Street was

cordoned off by the Fire Service as they dealt with a large velux window

that had smashed onto the pavement. It was just quite freaky. All of the

wind `` all of a sudden the wind was just horrendous, and a placard from

outside of the shop was thrown into the two and crashed outside. It

broke in two then hailstones. Later, we noticed the roof had come

off and landed in the little car park area and the railings were

bent. Goodness me, who knows what the weather will throw at us next!

Here is a man who might, welcome back, David.

After all of the bad weather we have seen come it is nice to talk

After all of the bad weather we have seen about more settled weather, but

perhaps not one of us for most of us, just one day, tomorrow. The

general trend is to remain unsettled this week, more rain in the forecast

and feeling quite cold, particularly tonight and tomorrow. Like a cold

day in wintry showers and enough clear sky overnight to drop

temperatures close to freezing, so we have `` warning from the Met

Office about the risk of ice, possible anywhere but especially on

roads and pavements that have not been gritted. You can see this gap

in the cloud to the west of Wales and the southern Ireland at the

moment. That gives much more settled weather overnight and a good part of

the day tomorrow before the next line of cloud comes in. That will

produce rain towards the end of the day tomorrow. Before it arrives and

we will have as reasonable day, increasingly hazy. By Wednesday we

are back to square one with a windy day and plenty of showers around,

some of those quite heavy at times. The showers we have now are still

quite lively, we have had hailstones in the last couple of hours, but

becoming more isolated as the evening wears on. By the end of the

evening and overnight the showers will probably fade away. Clearing

skies will allow some mist and crossed `` frost. We should have

some morning sunshine. We had some sunshine briefly today. This was

early today in the team yesterday. `` obtain estuary. `` Teign. For

most of us a chance to get outside and enjoys some lighter winds. You

could feel it being worn looking at that, but it has not been won

today, temperatures around eight Celsius. `` it has not been warned

today. A cold start, through the day tomorrow amateurs will come up. In

the afternoon the cloud will come in with not too much wet weather,

mostly across Cornwall by the end of the afternoon. Winds increasing as

the rain arrives. Where it stays cold tomorrow first thing it in the

morning eight Celsius is the highest we can expect, with the rain

temperatures up to double figures, for the Isles of Scilly for

instance. Quite windy here, especially by the early evening. The

times of high water... If you are heading to the beach for

a spot of surfing the waves are quite big and coastal conditions

still quite dangerous, even though the wind conditions have eased. The

sea temperature is around 10 Celsius. The coastal waters

forecast, winds from the west or north west first thing tomorrow,

picking up to force five backing Westerly.

Wednesday is windy, a day with plenty of cloud and frequent

showers. Temperatures are recovered nicely, less frost possible, but

certainly remaining unsettled towards the end of the week ahead.

That is all from me, good evening. There is more local news on your BBC

local radio station on the hour throughout the evening. I will be

back with the late News at 10:25pm. Have a good evening. Good night.