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Trust in us on services

IN THURSDAY’S editorial comment the Adver expressed some concern at the announcement that Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been chosen as the preferred provider for adult community healthcare services in Swindon.

Unfortunately, I think the Adver has misread this situation. And I wanted to reassure local people and staff of our commitment to community services.

It’s important to know that we have a strong track record in providing high quality community healthcare services, as confirmed by the Care Quality Commission earlier this year when they awarded us a “good” rating for our Wiltshire service.

We have been providing these vital services to Wiltshire residents for more than five years, operating as far south as Salisbury and Warminster.

However, we have never before been responsible for community services right here in Swindon, where it makes even more sense to join up local healthcare.

We were chosen by Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group after a competitive tender process, because we are in a unique position to be able to remove some of the barriers between different organisations, which all too often cause delays.

Having one provider of local healthcare means that patients should experience a more joined up service, regardless of whether they are being treated in hospital, in their own home or elsewhere.

We will be working closely with our new staff and listening to our patients, using their knowledge, expertise and experience, so that together we can make improvements.

The editorial comment is right on one point – the people of Swindon and the staff working in the community deserve the best, and so we will be investing heavily in staff.

We will be supporting them with more training opportunities and will be recruiting more staff to support them with direct patient care.

Swindon is, sadly, not unique in the challenges facing the health and social care system – an ageing population, growing demand, more expensive drugs and treatment and national staff shortages are just some of the things we deal with on a daily basis.

We need to do things differently to support people as they get older and we need to make our money go further.

These things are easier said than done, but our track record of providing community healthcare in Wiltshire, with exactly the same challenges, should give everyone confidence in our commitment to community services.

I am looking forward to working with the many dedicated community staff on these challenges together.

NERISSA VAUGHAN

Chief executive

The Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

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Save town from abyss

I NOTED Bob Pixton’s letter regarding the town centre.

I have more reasons than most to be critical of the snail’s pace the development of the town is taking, as I have been trying to maintain a restaurant/café/bakery in the Tricentre square, near the bus station, for 32 years.

The latter 12 have been without a lease and being told persistently during that time that we have two years left.

My staff have been fantastic thankfully but we are having problems just keeping machinery going, let alone maintaining our high standards.

However, I do have some sympathy for the council, as many of their problems have come from circumstances prevailing.

In the early part of the 2000s, the council had drawn up plans to completely redevelop the shopping centre and the peripherals.

They had private developers supporting the scheme, one of which went bankrupt in the interim, I believe.

The economic disaster during the Brown era and the subsequent world meltdown (I am not making a political point, just a factual one), brought about savage cuts in council funding, private firms getting cagey with their capital investment and many shops going under. Added to that, people’s trend toward shopping online and away from town centres, the council has had to review their plans and rethink the shopping concept.

I don’t support their ideas and would debate the need for the type of town centre we have currently, or one which follows the trend of all the other “malls”.

I have long campaigned on the need to draw in quality shops and new start-up retailers, together with craft tradesmen. This is the only way Swindon will draw shoppers back in. We just need to be different.

This has fallen on deaf ears for the last couple of decades I’ve been suggesting it.

As a professional chef, baker, patissier and chocolatier, my crafts are non-existent these days because of high rents and supermarkets, but there is still a market for quality shops.

I don’t think it’s completely fair to blame the council for all these problems, but I do think they need to move quickly now and to stop procrastinating, before Swindon sinks into an abyss.

DENNIS OFFER

The Octagon

New Bridge Square, Swindon

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Caring café is wonderful

AS A resident of the railway village for the past 18 months I would like to take this opportunity to talk about a small run business in the tented market.

Being ill and spending a lot of my time in hospital I am one of the unfortunate ones where every penny counts.

So going for a coffee and a breakfast is always out of my budget, as it is for many.

I came upon this small café in the market called Munchies, run by a lovely lady called Natalie and her helper Abi.

It’s just basic but goes back to when my mother took me into the market as a child when it was thriving.

I go there every day as it is affordable for me, but more importantly for the care and generosity of these people who run the café for us elderly.

You just don’t see that a lot, it’s become more of a social club for me now to see friends that I did not have before.

Please help the people like Natalie and many others in the market, just support them.

I feel Swindon is just on the verge of losing it’s heritage.

MJ STEPSON

Railway Village, Swindon

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Keep things as they are

I RECENTLY attended a meeting regarding parishing, which this Conservative council wishes to bring in.

They have kept these meetings very close to their chest and many people do not understand what is going on.

The only reason they want to do this is because of total mismanagement over the years they have been in charge.

What it really means is that they want to look good at our expense and be able to say that they have not increased the council tax above the accepted limit of two per cent a year. Yes, they have done this and misled us all.

Because they have failed miserably they have been left in the mire.

To get out of this they want to put us all into parishes, even though some do not exist at the moment and we will then be faced with extra charges for street cleaning, grass cutting and any hidden extras they have not mentioned as yet.

What it boils down to is they pass the buck to others to make it look good for themselves.

They are already getting rid of Lydiard House and in the process of scrapping the library service just to mention a couple of things.

If they carry on at the rate they are going they will have nothing to look after and they will all be out of work. That will save thousands of pounds as they won’t have to pay incompetent councillors.

The other question is will the charges go down if we all pay parish charges? The answer to that is

no. We will still be charged for those services that the council used to carry out and then we will have to pay extra to the parish council to do the same work.

You allocated £250,000 for a project in 2005, some 11 years ago, and it has never been used for purpose or has it been wasted on other schemes?

How many other projects have never come to fruition?

Come on Swindon Council, be brave if you can and put up the council tax to the required level and then we will all know where we stand.

You have messed around too long cutting this and that and claiming poverty.

Get on with the job you were elected for or get out and let someone else do a proper job.

It was noted that you just gave yourselves a hefty salary increase, so where did that come from?

My opinion is, leave things as they are and stay as Swindon Council and put up the charges accordingly, because I do not want to pay extra parish charges in the future which could mean even worse a service than we have now.

Readers should not say there is not much we can do about it. Have your say and make yourself heard to the council.

CLIVE CARTER

Branksome Road, Swindon

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Thanks for art room

I WONDER who else remembers Terry Court’s Art Room at Ferndale School with the ceiling covered by a huge parachute and colour everywhere and the Yellow Box Disco for the Youth Centre he set up.

Thanks Terry for being so creative.

JOHN DAVIES

Byron Avenue

Royal Wootton Bassett

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Honesty in Labour

FOR my part I am not, nor never will be, a member of Momentum, Progress Labour, Labour First or any pressure group in the Labour Party as I believe these are counter to the interests of the Party.

But I do not think one should be a “Party hack – my party right or wrong.”

Owen Smith, you are reported as acknowledging that Jeremy Corbyn is an honest person. But you questioned how he voted in the EU referendum.

This appears to be a contradiction, would you like to clarify, as this seems to be an unnecessary personal attack.

BRIAN V COCKBILL

North Swindon Labour Party member