Fundraising with Pickle
Our Pickle is sweet. She’s a Bichon Frise rescue, and she has been helping me fundraise for #StrokePrevention. Strange goal for a dog, I think!
A septuagenarian survivor of two minor Strokes myself, I took on my Community Challenge in the January lockdown to Cycle (mostly on my trusty exercise bike), Row (on my Pilates machine), and Walk (which is where Pickle steps in). My target was 500 miles.
Well, we’re still alive. In fact somewhat slimmer and fitter following the festive excesses. And we’ve made new friends along the way among people (and dogs of course) walking in our beautiful countryside. Some were exploring it for the first time, despite having lived in the area for years! And we’ve seen deer and most recently skylarks. It’s good to be alive!
And today we passed the 550-milestone, and our generous supporters have donated an amazing £1030. If you know people affected by Stroke, then please spur us on. Every penny goes to Stroke Association.
Stroke Association Head of Research Awards, Dr Richard Francis, said in December “There is growing evidence that people with more severe Coronavirus infection are at an increased risk of Stroke … and … that people who have Stroke and Coronavirus are likely to be younger than expected.”
Please check on our progress at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/pa-vonbergen
Our Community Challenge for #StrokePrevention ends on Saturday 12 June, so please help us overcome the last obstacles to reach our goal.
For further interesting reading, do check out the following links:
https://www.stroke.org.uk/news/does-coronavirus-cause-stroke-look-current-research
https://www.stroke.org.uk/finding-support/staying-active-when-staying-home
Keep safe and stay healthy.
Peter von Bergen, Easthampstead Rotarian
Time to take stock
It saddens me to see, from your report of May 13 a continuation of the problems that some patients have in receiving due care at Modality’s Wokingham Medical Centre (WMC).
I have no doubt their experiences are genuine and heartfelt, as are those of the more limited number who applaud WMC’s efforts. Both should be respected.
The situation underlying many problems existed pre-covid, and needs to be taken into account in the post-covid reorganisations that will undoubtedly take place.
Over four years, official polls of patients’ experiences have marked WMC as the worst (or very close to it) of 13 practices in the Borough, and of 48 in the west Berkshire CCG area.
Assessments of WMC performance for the last six months, on the NHS Choices website, include four bad reports (1 star) and 4 good reports (5 stars). If you search ‘WMC Google reviews’, you find additional reports, 10 bad and three good.
These figures are at odds with the practice’s self-assessment, in Modality literature, as a noted provider of ‘high quality, first class primary care’. Very recently, more realistically, this has been re-stated as a target. Modality also states that they maintain patients’ dignity at all times. Try telling that to a chronically disabled 75+ year-old who struggled to stand up from waiting room seats which had no or poor arms and whose requests for something more robust go unheeded for years; and who is brusquely shooed, by a partner, backwards in his wheelchair out of a corridor while awaiting an appointment with a CQC inspector, even though it is plenty wide enough to enable those on foot – there were none – to pass by, and into a waiting room with no bays.
Several other shortcomings affecting the disabled were listed in a complaint via NHS Choices in November 2017 – I await a reply.
Problems recently reported on the external websites include rudeness, the website, difficulties of the elderly and disabled, and the deaf ears of management. They are there for WMC, including the two GPs who have been given Directorships of Modality, to see.
For a comparable surgery, also taken over by Modality in 2017, in suburban Hull, there were, over the last six months, 19 bad reports, and one good; multiple, scathing comments were appended about degradations in service quality. We are not alone.
The preponderance of negative assessments about WMC is reflected in the reports of six CQC inspections since 2015; four of them, including the latest, required improvements in the practice’s responsiveness, including communication with patients.
So, what happened to the Centre’s proposed remedial (quarterly) Newsletter? This would surely be the place to report on progress in setting up the promised localised networks of GPs with Special Interests (the so-called GPSIs). Is the fixed national footprint of Modality affecting WMC’s relationship with our independent neighbours in the Primary Care Network?
As well as such information, a Newsletter could have, eg, a diabetes corner, a disability corner, a description of the pros and cons of Push Doctor and eConsult, and an invitation to propose improvements to the webpages.
Obviously, digital technology underpins the most ambitious patient-facing targets.
However, the Kings Fund health think-tank emphasises that patients need to be supported to use digital tools and to understand and act on the information they generate. The 10-year NHS plan calls for fundamental improvements to create genuine partnerships between the NHS and patients; indeed, such engagement was a pillar of the NHS Constitution. How is this engagement working out locally? An active Patients’ Participation Group (PPG) was dismissed, the partners’ representative volubly rejecting PPG’s role as a critical friend.
A replacement on-line group seems virtually non-existent, or dormant, its membership and role unspecified; I am not aware of any canvassing of patients’ opinions; I am advised that it has not bothered to take up its seat at the West Berkshire PPG for three years.
In recovering from Covid, and in developing super-practices, a factual baseline is needed, not just marketing material.
Mike Nicholls, Wokingham
Thanks for your help
I am a volunteer for Healthwatch Wokingham, an organisation set up to help make life a little bit easier for people who struggle.
I recently saw a small sign in Waterstones bookshop in Wokingham, telling hearing impaired people to ask the cashier to lower their masks to allow them to lip read.
As a wearer of two hearing aids myself I found this a wonderful thing for them to do. Inspired, I contacted my Healthwatch manager and we printed off some signs bearing the hearing impaired mark.
We were bowled over by the number of businesses willing to display this sign on their clear screens. These include Morrison’s (woosehill), British heart foundation, Millets, card factory and Coast to Coast.
I think these shops all deserve a pat on the back for helping our hearing impaired community!
THANK YOU.
Lynne Antink, Wokingham
Offences ignored
Our local Police Force is under strength and as such officers do not have time to deal with the more minor breaches of traffic law.
No Right Turns around the area are seldom enforced and have failed to be for many years. These include. From Market Place into Rose Street, Emmbrook Road onto Reading Road, Reading Road through the roundabout at Winnersh towards M4, Oxford Road onto Reading Road and now of course the new order at Hatch Farm junction (Wokingham Today, May 20) Other offences completely ignored are access only orders,. sometimes more difficult to prove the offence.
It seems that unless a camera is the witness no enforcement is taken so take as read these offences will continue and accidents will occur.
Ron Pearce, Hurst
Back on track
The first for quite some time.
A Bellmond British Pullman excursion from Waterloo to Bath and Bristol came through Wokingham on 19 May hauled by steam locomotive 35028 Clan Line.
Here it is at the Starlane crossing on Easthampstead Road.
Paul Phillips, Wokingham
Where are the flowers?
On Friday and Saturday I walked the paths on the east side of Cantley Park. There has been a verge of growing wild flowers, planted by WBC which were really beautiful last year.
Alas, these were all strimmed/mowed down on Friday and Saturday by WBC employees. There didn’t seem to be any sensible reason for this as the path was clear and safe.
I would appreciate your help in finding out who is responsible and why it was done.
I am really dismayed at what’s happened. It’s definitely against any environmental concern/interest.
I’ve met other walkers who were also upset.
Sue Farrington, Wokingham
Knock it down
The empty Prison in Reading should be knocked down and build only social housing for too many people on the waiting list with children – forget art, people need homes.
Victor Rones, Bracknell
Play away
As we approach a summer which, hopefully, will allow us to enjoy our lives with fewer restrictions, we can start planning how we want to spend some time with our friends and families.
After everything we’ve been through during the pandemic, we could all do with a bit more play in our lives – play is a hugely important part of childhood, and has a whole host of benefits, not least of all improving our physical and mental health and wellbeing.
To encourage people across the country to play, and raise money to support children and young people who have in many cases been the hidden victims of the pandemic, the NSPCC is launching its first national Childhood Day on June 11.
Whether you’re organising a sponsored kickabout in the park, a game of cards, a musical get-together or an online gaming tournament, we want your help to get the UK playing and raise money to help us keep children safe.
We are hugely looking forward to hearing how your readers plan to support the NSPCC and children across the UK this Childhood Day – to find out more, go to www.nspcc.org.uk or search online for NSPCC Childhood Day.
After the year we’ve had, we could all do with a bit more play. It doesn’t matter how you play this Childhood Day, it just matters that you play your part.
NSPCC Community Fundraising Manager for Berkshire – Emma Alexandra
