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Which party does Dr Wollaston currently represent?

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Category: NHS

Office of Dr Sarah Wollaston MP Totnes Constituency

Dear Nina,

Which party does Dr Wollaston currently represent?  I am not sure.  I do know she left the Conservative party some time ago.  So I cannot help wondering which element is paying the office expenses, but 'not my bag' as they say.  Incidentally, I had some useful correspondence with her re OUR NHS early on.  I have summarised the strategy as

destabilise>demoralise>dismantle. 

The latter started in about 1988 with Mrs Thatcher's/Milton Friedman's/Chicago School's Internal Market.  All the main organs opposed it, and I did my best alone from Torbay Hospital and the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital, ** to oppose it.  ***  The latter was bulldozed for a housing estate in c.1994 against the opposition of the surgeons bar two of ten.  PEOH - > RD&E as the PEOC.  This was under a Tory government and with Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick at the helm of the RD&E.  I had five colleagues at the RD&E then.  There are now 33.  This is in inverse proportion to the available beds.  eg  In February 2018, 8 operating lists were set up one weekend - as Mr Hunt was instructing should happen.  (You will recall he had angered the younger medical staff by calling the service then a 5 day one.)  There were only 12 available beds and as yet hip replacements etc cannot be done from day beds!  Norovirus on one ward and big overflows from the acute medical intake.  We were completely insulated from the latter at the PEOH and had 120 beds including one for children.  And you have heard how at Derriford, almost all elective orthopaedic surgery has been shifted from the NHS  to Care UK.

Safer Together?

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Category: NHS

The closure of over 60% of Community Hospital beds in South Devon, and an even greater proportion in North Devon, was engineered with 'consultations' that were undoubted shams.  In South Devon these were signed off and sealed by 'Healthwatch' Torbay - another UK wide sham and political invention.  The latter gives the illusion of public involvement and empowerment.  There was a large majority in the various 'consultations' pleading, on good grounds, against the closures.  As predicted, the District General Hospitals are failing in many important ways, the IT chaos of the weekend at Torbay being just one example.

This 'consultation' is headed 'Safer Together' (George Orwell lives), and was set up by the Devon and Somerset Fire Authority.  It proposes that eight of the fire stations staffed by retained firemen/women be closed, among other things.  It mimics the 'consultations' regarding the Community Hospitals.  There are familiar words like 'Drop In Sessions'.

Thoughts Shared with Sarah

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Category: General

Dear Sarah,

I will try to be brief Sarah.  I meet many people, mostly the 'common' man.  Men and women who actually do things that are useful unlike the loudmouths in the Commons with their infinite conceit.  Their loathing of those in the 'House', but especially,for the present, in the opposition benches is plain but is expressed quietly.  Ms Swanson and the LIBERAL and DEMOCRAT party are good metaphors.  The party of Cleggover, now in Ca. with Facebook and in a 'mansion' we are told.  The party of coalition that drove the April 1st 2012 Health and Social Care Act which removed the duty of universal care from the NHS and made the moves via destabilise>demoralise to the eventual dismantling almost complete.  Still recoverable by a people that will get together when a yoke is taken off.  The party of coalesced austerity - the latter so successful that our National Debt is at its highest - 86% aside from those post WW2 years (at least 150%) when bankrupted again to the US, fighting for the freedom of Europe in WW2 as against for the ragtags of Empire with Germany and France in WW1.  The party of weather cock politicians.  But nothing new there in our representational '''democracy'''.  Peterloo, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Diggers, the Cornish Rebellion truer samples.

Visits of SDHCT - ‘Torbay Trust’ to Private Insurer – Kaiser-Permanente USA

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Category: NHS

Dear Dr Johnson, Sent 30-07-19

It does not appear that I have had an acknowledgment of my e-mail below.  In it you will read that I was to write to the Torbay 'Trust' to find the costs of the visits of Trust board members to the headquarters of Kaiser Permanente in the USA.  I have not done that for lack of time, partly due to resolution of factors in my own health. 

Another reason is Trust tardiness in grasping nettles -
 a.  Admiral Sir Richard Ibbotson
https://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/37-articles/nhs/216-an-example-of-the-low-standards-of-ethical-principle-and-thought-in-our-nhs
Another -
b. is the failure of board member Leslie Darke Executive Director of Estates and Commercial Development at TSDFT, to tell me in October 2018 whether staff leaving before retirement were asked in a kindly way their reasons for leaving.  She was obliged. as you know, under the Freedom of Information Act to reply to my simple question within 20 days, and without a need for me to cite this STATUTE and her obligations under it.  I asked her twice.  The ICO (the overwhelmed Information Commissioners Office) was contacted and after delay, prised the following out of the Trust this month, at least 9 months after my question. See twin posting: Retention of Nursing Staff: Failure of Leslie Darke, Torbay Trust Board Member to Answer a Key Question asked October 2018

I am therefore asking you, on behalf of the CCG to answer these four questions given that the budget which CCG-Corporate Services holds of £1.6 billion funds the 'Torbay' Trust.  That is, it commissions services, planning, policy etc within the Trust.

Retention of Nursing Staff: Failure of Leslie Darke, Torbay Trust Board Member to Answer a Key Question asked October 2018

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Category: NHS

Data Protection and Freedom of Information Team

Request for information FS50815962[Ref. FS50815962]

Dear Ms Pearce, 12-07-19 11.45 am

This is a preliminary response.  I first asked Mrs Leslie Darke,  Executive Director of Estates and Commercial Development at TSDFT, in October 2018 whether staff leaving before  retirement were asked in a kindly way their reasons for leaving.  She was a board member.  She was obliged under the Freedom of Information Act to reply to my simple question within 20 days, and without a need for me to cite this STATUTE and her obligations under it.  I asked her again and received this -

21-12-18  Dear David,  Thank you for your question. Via this e-mail I will ask my colleague the Director of Workforce to respond to your question. Happy Christmas to you too. Kind Regards  Lesley

I heard nothing from the 'Director of Workforce'.