Annual March and Rally 2002

The Essex Region Annual March and rally took place on August 2nd in Southend-on-Sea. A tribute was paid to Barbara Castle, The minister responsible for introducing the indexing of the State pensions with earnings and after leaving parliament, a great campaigner for all pensioners'.

Alan Hurst M.P. (Braintree)

Recalled the debate in Parliament in the 1890's concerning the establishment of the Old Age Pension, it did not happen for another 10years. We learn from the past to go forward. The Health Service was established from the Beaveridge Report. Barbara Castle established the link with earnings which only lasted a short while due to change of government.

The Government is bringing in the Pension Credit/Savings next October which is extremely complicated to work out. The pension service is being formed to make sure that the Pension credit scheme is workable and it up to the pensioners to keep the pressure on to get it right. The winter Fuel Payments have been welcome around the county. The Free TV licence for over 75's in welcomed but should be available at pension age.

The Free bus travel, often called the postcode lottery, minimum half-fare is not working as it was intended. Where free travel has been introduced, in different parts of the country, big increase in the usage of buses during off peak periods have occurred. The deregulation of the buses is the cause of the problems associated with the private bus companies. Generally after 7.00p.m buses are infrequent or none.

On the position regarding the Care Homes and quality of life, the County Council has in the past, refused to address the situation, hence we are in the position that we are in today. The NHS is to receive £14 billion extra funding in the future for extra staff and equipment.

Post Offices have been closing over a number of years due to the advent of the Supermarkets.

The payment of pensions should be paid by cash if desired. Pension do not need to be complicated, the simple way is the scheme established by Lloyd-George, properly funded scheme through the state.

Les Bright, Deputy Chief Executive of the Counsel and Care for the Elderly

The organisation was established, small in size compared to Age Concern and Help the Aged. when two Hospital Administrators in 1954 saw the need to establish an elderly invalid fund for people discharged from hospital, who could not afford the care they needed. From the established fund, interest from the fund would be used for this purpose. The organisation is now called Council and Care for the elderly working with remits from individuals and from other organisations. It operates an advisory service for the elderly with a free-call telephone number. In some cases it is necessary to proceed through all the appeals procedure up to the Ombudsman.

The responsibilities include campaigning and research care of elderly persons in care/nursing homes. There are high pressures on the Care system at the moment, such as people living longer, under funding of social care, day centres. More resources are needed. After leaving hospital, good quality care services are needed. One in ten persons receives social care, mainly the over 80 yrs. In the past, there was a good home service which now has almost disappeared.

Elderly people do not get the service when needed; examples are contact with the social service, waiting lists closed or too long. Real attitudes in age discrimination, mental Health problems and reference to government report, decreasing investments in care homes and under funding are but a few of the problems.

The National Framework calls for healthy ageing, the Local Authorities only provide 15% of the Care homes and this figure is declining resulting in under funding of Care homes. What is the difference between nursing/social care? The under funding of nursing and social care, is the area that needs bringing to the attention of the Government.

Frank Cooper, NPC

Congratulations to the organisers of this meeting and greetings from the NPC. Citizens of this country have the right to change the minds of Governments. In September, the Government has to reply to the European Union directive regarding older persons about pensions and age discrimination. We are the 4th richest country in the world yet we are 3rd from the bottom in value of the pension.

The NPC campaigned for the reduction of VAT on fuel, but it was the larger organisation that benefited from it. The Pension Credit/saving due to be implemented next year will not solve the problems as it is a means tested benefit which involves completing a 32 page application form. In the past, the Labour party when in opposition were against means testing, now the present Government is introducing more than ever.

The aims of the NPC is that Pensions should be linked with earnings, no means testing, free bus travel etc. The Pensioners Parliament in Blackpool was a great success. The increase in Pensions over the last three years has been more than the price index. New regions have been set up in the East and West Midlands, Devon and Cornwall, and Wessex. Existing regions are London / South East and Eastern.

Care in the Community by Les Coben, Vice-chairman, PAA Essex Region

Most pensioners would perceive that their biggest problem would either be the State Pension, the NHS, Social Services or Public Transport, some would say all four, I would say these are not the cause but the symptom, I would venture to say that the cause of the problems that effect the Elders of society is Institutionalised Age Discrimination, emanating from the very heart of government.

Until 1980 the elderly were getting a fair crack of the whip, nothing over brilliant but reasonable, then along came Madam and cut off our index linked lifeline to earnings ( which as we all know we have never recovered from) she then told the NHS that they must become cost effective, they closed hospitals sold off the land to private contractors, shut wards, but they still needed to become cost effective, well any business man will tell you that in the private sector to save money you got rid of workers, the NHS could not do that openly, so they reduced staffing on wards and other areas, but it still needed more cost cutting, so they looked at what type of patient cost the most, 10 and behold it was the elderly, up until this time if you needed hip or knee operations though there was a wait it was in most cases only a few months, the same for cataract operations, so the way to save money was by cutting these operations, and this was the start of a quiet move into Institutionalised Age Discrimination. We couldn't go to court on this because there is no written proof, but the accountants were running the hospitals not the doctors or nurses, whistle blowers were sacked.

Then the bright young things that advise our politicians thought "hey" if we keep the old codgers out of the hospitals it wont cost so much, so they introduced Care in the Community, put all the patients suffering from depression or any other sort of mental disorder out on to the streets and said go to your doctor he will give you pills which it is now up to you to take, and this was regardless of age or awareness.

Next was the elderly again, keep them at home send round district nurses and home care and that's that, but wait a minute there aren't enough district nurses or home care, well it's not the governments fault blame the local authority's. It is now 2002 and nothing has changed, they don't call it Community Care anymore, it is now Intermediate care and this time this government who still have bright young things advising them, has said you must become partners that is the local PCT's, local authority's, and wait for it the "voluntary sector".

The government talk's money but the amounts they talk about are over a ten year period, and are not being used for the right purpose. I have one of our members who is 78 has suffered a heart attack, has deep vein thrombosis, and recently broke an ankle, she is probably no different to many of you, her hospital doctor thought she should have a stair lift, Essex Social services tell her that she has to wait 10 months before she can get an assessment.

I left Public Transport until last , because I know that many of you do not have public transport in your areas and those of you that do, find that the private company's will not run a service if it's not making a profit. Maybe I am paranoid and all these things that are happening to the elderly of this country is not Institutionalised Age Discrimination, so if I am wrong why are we being treated in this manner?

Is it because the people that are advising the government are all in their thirty's, and the ones that are older are so wealthy, that what effects us, they have no conception of.

A New Tertiary Centre for Essex

The proposal is to build a tertiary cardiac centre in Essex. Currently, the nearest specialist centres for people in Essex are at Bart's and the London NHS Trust in London. Some people from Uttlesford go to Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire.

The tertiary centre would develop and lead the network of cardiac care in Essex. The Essex tertiary centre would operate on around 1,200 cases a year in total and these would be mainly Essex residents.

About 75% of Essex NHS patients who need heart surgery would use the Essex centre. The remainder could continue to have their operations in London or Papworth, if that was their preference.

Reasons for Developing a Tertiary Centre in Essex

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is one of the most common killers. The UK has one of the worst records of deaths from CHD compared with the rest of Europe. CHD is a top priority for health improvements in the NHS plan.

The Government has published a National Service Framework (NSF) for Coronary Heart Disease that sets specific targets for improvements. The NSF recommends that there are local networks of cardiac care linking GPs. local hospitals and a tertiary centre. There are targets for shorter waiting times and for more people to have treatment offered to them. Both of these will require more treatments to be carried out each year. One of the targets is to increase the number of revascularisations that is the number of treatments to relieve blocked arteries in the heart.

Under the current arrangements, Essex cannot meet these National Service Framework targets. Currently, people in Essex wait longer for revascularisation compared with other parts of the east of England. In other words, not enough people in Essex are getting access to tertiary centre operations. More treatments are needed for London residents as well. A centre in Essex would increase overall capacity and be the best solution for Essex residents. Capacity in London would then be available for the increasing needs of London residents.

Summary of the case for a centre in Essex

The greatest needs in the east of England population are in the south, where there are more people, greater deprivation and a higher incidence of coronary heart disease. There are long waiting times in Essex for cardiac surgery in London. An Essex centre would mean more operations and shorter waiting times.

An Essex centre can reduce journey times for many Essex patients. An effective network would reduce the number of journeys for each patient. Without an Essex centre there is little potential for developing angioplasty in local hospitals in the future. An Essex centre would support a countywide, high quality service for Essex residents.

Making the Choice for Essex

In this section we discuss potential locations for an Essex tertiary cardiac centre. We also explain why an expert panel has recommended that the preferred location is at Basildon Hospital.

Summary of the evaluation

The evaluation process considered the number of cases the tertiary centre would need to treat in the next 20 years, how techniques and practice could change in the future and what the optimum location would be to treat as many people as possible. Hospital sites at Colchester, Harlow and Southend would not provide good access for the residents of Essex, nor would they provide a suitable central link to the other Essex hospitals. The sites at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford and Basildon Hospital provide the best geographical locations to serve the majority of the population and to support an effective Essex network.

The evaluation panel studied detailed proposals from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust and Basildon and Thurrock General Hospitals NHS Trust. The panel took into account:

Access Issues

Shorter waiting times for Essex patients who need life-saving operations is the most important access issue in this proposal. This would be realised by an Essex tertiary centre, whether it is sited in Basildon or Chelmsford.