YEP Letters: October 9

GPs must have ‘open door’ policy

Paul Muller, Wakefield

IT is said 999 staff should treat more patients at the scene.

No, that is the function of the General Practitioner who will know the patient’s medical condition.

The reason patients call 999 is because they are unable to see their GP in a timely fashion.

GPs must again have an ‘open door’ policy for their patients who they know.

This can be done every day of the weekday, and at night, on a rota basis.

Green light for massive £350m Leeds scheme

Plans to develop a vital part of Leeds’ industrial history have taken a step forward. Developer CEG has signed a Section 106 legal planning agreement with Leeds City Council for a six acre site off Globe Road and Water Lane in the city’s South Bank. The site is earmarked for a £350 million sustainable mixed-use development on a patch of land that has historically seen planning permissions granted but not built out. Work will commence next month demolishing the former warehouse on Water Lane and preparing the site for development. The proposals will deliver a new location for the south west of the city centre with up to 750 new homes and workplaces along with shopsnand restaurants. We asked YEP readers for their views and here’s what some of them said on social media..

Rik Tarkenenso

Here’s to more traffic congestion whilst it’s being built and beyond. Deep joy. Plenty of forethought once again from good old Leeds City Council.

Sam Mu

The developers haven’t even finished their current project. How can they be working on a new one when Kirkstall Forge is nowhere near completion?

Mark Everson

Good quality homes are needed. Not just boxes in the sky. More restaurants? Some of the restaurants in Trinity are closing. We only have so much money and can only eat so much food. We definitely need doctors, dentists and schools.

I’d be happy for a mix of private and public infrastructure. However we clearly don’t need yet more food and drink outlets.

Julie P Gracie-Mae’s Nanna

Think the money would be better off being spent on new council housing!

Richard Mckenzie

Great for Leeds! Fantastic.

Lucia Perdiou

Let’s hope it doesn’t turn in to a ghost town like Clarence Dock.

Richard Mitchell

Lots of green lights.. but they never get turned on.

Scott Howieson

Meanwhile the urban slums continue to rot.

More than quick fix needed

Rachel Power, Chief Executive, Patients Association.

WITH social care in long-term crisis, any additional funding is of course welcome. But yet another short-term top-up for social care shows how bad things have got, and how urgently we need a sustainable long-term solution.

The forthcoming Green Paper absolutely must set a course to a social care system that is properly funded and works for everyone who needs it. It must also avoid the trap of seeing social care simply as a way of keeping pressure off the NHS, whic reports of the extra funding appear to fall into. Social care provides essential support in daily living to many people, and is vitally important in its own right. In our response to NHS England’s proposals for a 10-year plan for the NHS, we call on it to show ambition, and recognise that health and wellbeing are public goods that we must curate carefully as a society. Social care is an equally important component in this, and the 10 year plan – and Green Paper – must, together, offer a coherent vision for the future.

Address pressure across service

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, British Medical Association council chair.

AS we enter what is typically the busiest time for the health service, one of the key issues that needs addressing is meeting the additional demand with a limited capacity.

Adequate capacity and staffing in social care is vital to support pressures in the NHS – from providing anticipatory support to ill patients in the community that prevents hospitalisation to enabling patients to be discharged from hospital in a timely manner. This new funding, if directed appropriately, can help free up beds and ease hospital pressures. However, this is a short-term fix that doesn’t nearly make up for a decade’s worth of cuts to social care, and does not address the impoverished infrastructure of the NHS this winter. Local authority spending on adult social care in England has fallen eight per cent in real terms since 2010. Amid a growing population, this means spending per adult has gone down 13.5 per cent – from £439 in 2010 to £379 last year – and this is before we even consider the additional pressure an ageing population puts on social care services.

What is needed is for the Government to use its long-term investment plan to address pressures across the health and social care service, rather than offer short-term gestures.

Brexit disunity

Paul Ashfield, Harrogate.

THE Brexit opportunity to achieve a return of sovereignty and have frictionless trade with the EU was lost at the outset.

We remained a divided nation, the Remainers working assiduously to remain. Our disunity prevented a good Brexit. The EU seized this opportunity to launch a second project fear and determine not to negotiate seriously, hoping we will remain or if we leave it will be with a bad or no deal that will cause serious economic problems. They would then say to the other 27 EU countries, see what happens to you if you leave. Brexit failure and their inept political management have greatly damaged Conservative credibility. They are handing Jeremy Corbyn and his “gang”, despite Labour’s many problems, the opportunity to form a government. The prospect is horrific.