Another letter to my MP on the SW NHS pay cartel

Here's a copy of the letter I sent to my MP, Mel Stride (con) regarding the NHS pay cartel which proposes reducing pay for staff to save money-

Dear Mel Stride,

I have been following the recent stories regarding the South West NHS
pay cartel, the details of which I'm sure you are aware of as it will
affect Trusts covering your constituency but also I believe is a
worrying trend for us all.

If these Trusts are able to go outside of the national Agenda for
Change payscales it potentially will increase the likelihood of good
care being a postcode lottery as:

1) The Trusts struggle to attract and retain clinicians and other
medical staff as their payscales can't compete with a Trust not taking
part in this;

2) Staff working above and beyond their contracted hours (there is an
awful lot of "good will" working at present as I'm sure you know) might
work to rule;

3) The motivation and morale of staff (and this is something quoted by
the Trusts not taking part) will suffer. Staff are already coping with
pay freezes while the costs of living increase, many of which are felt
more in the South West due to the rurality of Devon and it's
neighbouring Counties. The cost of fuel for example is crippling.

Other knock-on effects as incomes fall might be:

1) House repossessions as families struggle to make ends meet;

2) An increase in personal debt;

3) An increase in the burden on the benefits system as incomes fall.

The Trusts themselves might be affected too as staff being less willing
to work additional, non-contracted and unpaid hours will lead to an
increase in agency spend. It is also a possibility that the pressures
related to the financial burdens on staff will increase sickness/stress
related leave.

While I understand the QIPP mandate to reduce costs in the NHS I
believe that the increase in demand on the NHS and also social services
means that the focus should be on making ourselves more efficient with
what we have now rather than reducing resource and expecting it to
deliver the same service.

The NHS is a national treasure, something we should be proud of and I
think the majority of the population are proud of it but maybe some of
us don't appreciate what we have until it's gone and that's why this
and other schemes which undermine and reduce the effectiveness of the
NHS must be opposed or at least undertaken after public consultation
and with the input of staff, unions and politicians from all parties.

Yours sincerely,

Rich Mills

p.s. Many thanks for your replies to previous messages.

Bluebirds and Dragons

Bluebirds and Dragons

This is a short piece I did for www.codalmighty.com after reading about a Cardiff City fan's protest about his team's disgraceful pandering to new investors. I asked if they were going to be covering it and they asked if I was going to write it. So I did. This went on line at CA on  20th July and is still there in all its glory - http://www.codalmighty.com/site/ca.php?page=1213/articles/richm-20120720 - but just in case it ever disappears then here's the text.

Summer and no Town news to speak of. I don’t recognise any of the names Town are signing, they’re playing the same old pre-season friendlies and now it looks like Field Marshall Fenty is looking at a new site for a stadium again. A disappointing Euro 2012 (was it ever going to be anything else?); the beautiful game dragged through the gutter thanks to Mr Terry et al; and North of the border? Well, it’s like a footy version of “The Thick of It.”

Cricket

It’s at times like these that I find my mind straying to other sports. Not the bloody Olympics, no, but other more worthy sports – Cricket and our genuinely exciting and world class team and individuals; the Tour De France and in particular the team effort involved to support Bradley Wiggins’ tilt at the Paris podium; prior to that I even found myself following the tennis!

Promotion

It’s a stop gap though isn’t it until I find myself fidgeting at 4.30 on a Saturday afternoon or an increasingly regular Tuesday evening and I watch Town’s progress through the BSBP as they tease me with their promotion potential. Until August 11^th though I find myself skimming through my Twitter timeline in search of something a little different - odd bits of football related news or a well put together (and grammatically correct) blog - which is where I came across this….

Dudley

Ben Dudley (@Dudley1927) is a sports journalist and Cardiff fan a little ticked off by his club’s rebranding. I’m assuming at this point that if you read Codalmighty then you’ll also be aware of what’s happening with Cardiff (is this too much of an assumption? Am I wrong to think there’s a Codalmighty demographic?). Anyway, Ben has decided to do something quite brilliant and is boycotting his team and auctioning his support on Ebay, arguing that he isn’t giving up on The Bluebirds because they’re rubbish but instead that following the rebrand they might as well be a new team.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230827697915

Free Pint

The auction offers “My support for the 2012/13 football season (with certificate and free pint)” and as I type this the bidding stands at £205 with 9 days to go. Ben is obviously surprised by the bidding and the auction has been amended with a note to say that £50% of the proceeds will be going to the Ty Hafan Children’s Charity. I assume the rest will go towards his expenses supporting his new team which might be considerable. Ben also writes a website http://myonlycardiff.com on which he reports on matches he attends (as well as articles relating to the demise of the team he loved) and his auction includes his reporting on all the matches he will attend supporting his new team. It’s a great website too.

 

Inverness

He also adds a caveat that he doesn’t mind which team the winning bid entails “apart from Swansea City and Bristol City due to the likelihood of me being discovered and chased away from the stadium by angry mobs with flaming torches. I would also prefer if you didn't play in red or have a dragon on your badge if at all possible.”

The auction also includes some Q&As and shows interest from as far afield as Inverness but would the Caley Jags’gain be Mariners’ loss? Is Ben someone we should be making a play for in the summer transfer market? Forget signing another journeyman, 5 goals per season striker or yet another lumpy, lazy midfielder, shouldn’t we be luring passionate fans with a sense of what is right and what really matters in football?

Bastard Franchise Scum

On a serious note (although I would of course love Ben to find himself a Mariners fan at the end of this auction) this and other campaigns really highlight the fact that many fans aren’t happy with the direction their clubs are taking. What is the club? What is the team? The Wimbledon/MK Dons franchise arrangement and the decision by a large group of supporters to throw their support behind AFC Wimbledon must have been considered when Cardiff City’s board accepted this foreign investment and agreed to change the colours and badge?

Integrity

Will fans walk away if they see their club change beyond all recognition? Does the promise of money and the chance of “success” mean fans will accept anything? The coverage of the Rangers case was and still is compulsive reading for many reasons but it was heartening to see that many chairmen mentioned input from the fans as informing their decision to vote against allowing Newco Rangers back into the SPL; fans threatening to walk away from the game if sporting integrity and a level playing field wasn’t upheld. What next though? Which will be the next club? Would we throw our support behind Carphone Warehouse FC, playing in pink shirts and shorts (but red socks)? Would years of mediocrity and/or failure blind us to our club’s history and heritage being sold to the highest bidder? Or any bidder in fact. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t be the case and hopefully that won’t be tested but you never know.

Need another reason to visit Ben’s auction page? Really? Okay then, Scunthorpe gets a mention.

another letter to my MP - privatising Healthcare and public sector pay changes

Dear Mel Stride,

hope this finds you well, many thanks for your prompt reply last week on the NHS Bill.

I didn't expect to be writing to you again so soon but I feel I have to raise it.

The first thing which concerns me and many others is the tendering of Devon Children's Services and how it seems likely to go to a private sector provider based on their wealth rather than experience of managing and delivering said services. Children's care (and I am calling it "care" not healthcare as these are integrated services) is quite complex and it worries e to think that these under-funded, high risk services will be sold off to the highest bidder, one which will want to make money from them!

This is being reported in the press as a direct link to the NHS bill but it is linked a little further back to the need for PCTs to split their provider and commissioning functions, something I understand and agree needed to be done as there was obviously a conflict with a PCT effectively paying itself to provide services it also commissioned. But, to push these services to the private sector is rash and dangerous. This isn't as simple as privatising simple (bounded) services, services which can be made to generate profit. I am sure you know about this proces as it covers your constituency but I have not seen much about it in the mainstream other than the reports at the end of the week which seem to have been leaked in some way.

Has this process been mentioned/discussed in Parliament? Is it a done deal?

The second thing which concerns and worries me is the proposal to freeze public sector pay til it falls in line with private; to scrap national pay scales; to regionalise pay. Following recent freezes and pension changes this will be crippling for a good chunk of the workforce. The cost of living is rising - fuel, food, everything - and this would seem set to lead to repossessions and child poverty, etc.

In a rural constituency such as yours and indeed a county which has a substantial number of properties as holiday homes and hence house prices which do not reflect average wages, this must not be allowed to come to pass! If anything fuel duties should be regionalised to reduce the burden on the rural workforce.

Again, thanks for your time.

Yours sincerely,

Rich Mills

A letter to my MP about the proposed health and social care bill

I wrote to my MP today regarding the Health & Social Care Bill. I'm sure you've heard about it but do you understand what it means to you? Really??

If you think the objections are simply about fat pensions for greedy public sector workers then for goodness sakes, stop what you're doing and start reading about it. The care you and your family receive for free now could soon disappear.

Here's what I wrote -

Dear Mel Stride,

I am writing to you to express my concern over the proposed health and social care bill. The impact and implications of this dangerous bill are far reaching and quite frankly scary for the majority of the population. Unfortunately the majority of the population will not understand the details of the bill or even need to but the implications are not being explained in clear language and instead serious concerns by professionals in all parts of the NHS are waved away and sadly passed off as "greedy public sector workers worried about their pensions" in outrageous spin articles in the Mail, Sun, etc.

I know you are a member of the conservatives and are obliged to tie the party line and will be pressured by the whips but you will understand the problems this bill will cause to your constituents, particularly the elderly and vulnerable.

I am appealing you to question everything and acknowledge your constituents before it is too late.

Yours sincerely,

Rich Mills

** update - a first reply **

I received an email from Mike Knuckey
(Assistant to Mel Stride MP)

"Dear Mr Mills

Thank you very much for contacting Mel Stride MP on the important issue of the government's NHS reforms and your concerns about the clarity with which they had been explained to the public, the issue of spin and press reaction and that of the role of party whips in relation to the way that MPs vote. I know that Mel will be particularly interested in your email as the NHS an Institution that he feels particularly supportive of and he also has concerns about the way in which some commentators are positioning the government's drive to improve the NHS

We will deal with your email as soon as possible and Mel will be in touch."

There was a bit more about signing up for updates but not relevant to this.

So, Mel has concerns as to how some commentators are positioning the government's attempts to improve the NHS?

Nobody has an issue with improvements, in face NHS outcomes have improved significantly over the past few years and is still improving and making changes to cope with an expanding, elderly population as well as increasing problems such as obesity and it's related conditions.

I do hope that Mel and his colleagues aren't writing off concerns as left-wing noise.

Mighty Mariners Memorabilia

I wasn't sure what to title this blog and to be honest I'm not even sure what the point of it is.

I've just had these things for a while now and thought I'd share them. I always meant to frame these along with a couple of other Grimsby Town matchday programmes and hang them on the wall but I never got round to it so here I am now, 13 or 14 years later, hanging them on the wall of my inconsistent blog site. Is there a point to it other than I think they're pretty cool?
Not really :)

I love the idea that in the not too distant past, whenever Grimsby achieved anything there would be a commemorative cover. 

Football fans and stamp collectors. The same demographic obviously. This one celebrates the 80th anniversary in 1972 of Town being elected into the Football League. Town were formed in 1878 and were elected in 1892. One of the things I love about this is the price of the stamp - 2 1/2p - and this was when it would have still been new pence :)

1972 was a pretty good year. Deep Purple released the Machine Head album and my sister Kate was born!  

The next one is also from 72 and celebrates Town getting promoted from the 4th division as champions.

Note: 4th division, kids? League 2 nowadays. Things were simpler back then and of course BETTER.

This cover is a wild design too. Look a space! Let's add a fish and it's saying "match result". Or something. A plaice in a goal net? Red and green ink? A trawler? A trophy? Chuck it all on there! Hold on, leave room for the stamp!!

These things also came with a commemorative card which took the piss for the amount of times they'd been relegated and promoted or re-elected.

Whoever wrote this would have a field day after the last few years of relegations!

Look carefully at this - record attendance at Blundell Park = 31, 654! I just can't imagine what that must have been like. The card also mentions noted players, one of which is the legendary Jackie Bestall, capped by England in the 30s. BEstall had a street named after him in Cleethorpes. Not many players get that honour. Perhaps fittinly for a player only 5' 5" tall, Bestall Road is/was the shortest road in Grimsby/Cleethorpes.

This next one celebrates Grimsby's return to the 2nd division

(they call it the championship now but we're not fooled are we?) afer finishing the 79/80 season as champions of division 3.

It's a lot neater but look at the price of that stamp! 11 1/2p! The cover also came with a card (below) which was sponsored by The Mirror. At least it wasn't the Daily Mail.

 

Moving away from stamps, here's a pretty cool matchday programme from 1966

when Town were playing in the 3rd division and against local rivals Scunthorpe. Enough about them though.

I love anything with the dock tower on it and Grimsby programmes are no exception. I love driving into the town on the A180 and seeing the tower. Only those lucky enough to have been born in Grimsby or Cleethorpes can even begin to appreciate this.  

The back cover had a great ad for Hewitts Ales. Back in the day footballers were positively encouraged to get on it after a game!

  

 Last bit of the programme now, I promise.

Check out the team sheet - Ron Cockerill, father of future players Glenn and John and Keith Jobling at centre half who was the holder of the appearance record for Town until overtaken by Saint John McDermott. Matt Tees - another legend at inside right.

I think this formation was referred to as 2-3-5. We played it at school in the 70s, early 80s.

Harry Wainman is a name I remember from my youth; not because I saw Harry play (I didn't) but beacuse after hanging his boots up Harry had a sports shop on Freeman Street, Grimsby. My dad used to take me in there to get boots, laces, that sort of thing. The shop wasn't far from St Mary's chool where he taught and I seem to remember he knew Harry to chat too. Maybe because he had taught the Moore brothers - Andy, Dave and Kevin - I think all 3, and he went to the same church as former Grimsby manager Lawrie McMenemy. I wish I could check whether he taught all 3 Moores.

Check out the left back. Graham Taylor. Yep, that Graham Taylor, future England Manager. I remember being at home one evening and Lawrie McMenemy ringing to speak to my dad but being in a bit of a hurry as he was in Poland as assistant manager to Taylor and the call was really expensive.

Sprouts are not the great satan!

This is dedicated to Mr Rich Hill, DJ and sprout luddite. Read his stuff here - Spadge on a Badger  

There are some foods that we love and some that we hate, or at least *think* we hate, perhaps due to how we’ve had them served to us before and perhaps also because they also get bad press.

The food I had in mind when I started to type seems to get such a raw deal but has it killed anyone? Not that I’m aware of; unlike peanuts I don’t think you can have a sprout allergy. In fact, the only accusation you might level at the sprout with any justification is that it might make you guff/fart/windy-pop (delete as applicable) if you eat a lot of them.

I’ve always loved sprouts and so has my son, Aaron (aged 6 ½). It’s the first thing he eats on his plate every Sunday lunch.

The knack with sprouts is to cook them properly I reckon. Here are a few pointers before we get to the recipe J

• If you insist on boiling them then the rules are thus:
• 8 minutes is probably enough. Over-boiling them makes them soft, wet and tasteless, like any vegetable.
• When you’re peeling the outer leaves off and trimming the stalk, don’t cut a cross into the stalk end, it makes them absorb more water and you don’t want soggy sprouts do you?
• Try steaming them. It takespretty much the same time as boiling and they retain their flavour better.
• Sprouts like garlic. Try frying them together with a little olive oil and then add salt and pepper.

The Recipe

I can’t remember where I first came across this. It may have been in a book by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall book or maybe Pru Leith. Hugh’s books are ace as are Pru’s, particularly her Vegetarian Bible. Definitely buy

My wonderful girlfriend, Caragh, says this turns something which is inherently healthy into a potential heart attack. She’s a dietician so I ought to listen to her.

You will need:

• A baking dish.
• Enough sprouts for everyone - a bag of them or 3 navvy’s handfuls. Whichever measure you’re more comfortable with
• Enough cream to cover said sprouts. A medium size pot seems to do the job and single cream is fine.
• Breadcrumbs but not those horrible ones in the supermarket. Blitz or grate some bread!
• A bit of butter
• Salt & pepper to season

Do this:

1. Par-boil the sprouts for about 5 minutes then rinse them under cold water.
2. While they’re boiling rub the baking dish with a little butter and a garlic clove.
3. Chop the sprouts in half and then press them in a colander to get rid of excess water
4. Season them with S&P and put them in the dish.
5. Pour over the cream til the sprouts are covered.
6. Top with breadcrumbs and blob a few bits of butter on top.
7. Bake in the oven at 180 (gas mark 4 I think) for about 25 minutes or until the breadcrumbs look nice and brown and the cream has bubbled up through.
8. Eat it. With a roast dinner or even on its own with bread and butter.

Try this:

• Make it more healthy by replacing half the cream with milk but it will be more runny.
• Make it even tastier by frying a bit of bacon or some lardons and mixing it with the sprouts before adding the cream.
• Before adding the breadcrumbs, grate some parmesan over the creamy sprouts

This is just fantastic, trust me. Perfect with roast duck I reckon. Or beef.

We're Going Through Changes

This blog is another one I did last year for http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon.co.uk/ and it was titled “Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes” (I think I was listening to Bowie the day I wrote it). Today I listened to Black Sabbath*, hence the new title J

The music business has changed, totally and utterly changed. The internet is at the heart of it, but has it changed for the better? It’s certainly better for the listener but whether it’s good for bands/artists is a moot point. I’m not decided yet but what I can say with some certainty is that it’s not going to change back to how it was so we’ll just have to make the best of it!

It’s certainly easier to get your songs heard these days; you can post tracks on your website or social media sites such as Myspace (apparently still there, tumbleweed and all), Facebook and Youtube and you can  sell them through iTunes and Amazon or stream them on Spotify. As a listener if you hear about a new band from a friend, on the radio, in a newspaper or magazine or see them on TV then as long as you have a connection to the internet you can be listening to or buying their tunes in minutes!

The world is a totally connected and smaller place now; radio stations stream their shows online and Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and your website give you a worldwide reach and a much bigger potential audience. Devon and Brisbane are 1000s of miles apart physically but online they might as well be next to each other!

So, this all sounds great, what’s the problem? Well, despite it being easy to get music “out there”, I think we need to work a lot harder these days as it’s easy for *everyone* to make their music available. You could have the best tune in the world but how would anyone know?

  

The rate of change is challenging too. A few years ago Myspace was all the rage; a single place to interact with fans, friends, bands, etc., and I used it loads in conjunction with the band’s (both in Too Hot and The Simmertones) website and email mailing list. Myspace is now a lonely, lonely place; I don’t even get spam from it any more!

Facebook is big but it’s not as efficient for bands; your “friends” and “likers” need to be looking for something from you or be online when you post it or it will get missed in the “timeline”, unless of course it’s reposted by everyone.

A Youtube channel where we you can host your videos (or songs with a simple photo attached) is very useful. I set up a channel for The Simmertones a few years ago and it was very successful for the band, particularly with a “video” I put together to accompany the reworking of the Doctor Who theme off the first album. We also made a few proper videos too. If you’d told me a few years back we would have done a music video I would have laughed at you as that was just for signed, bigger bands but….times change!

So, Twitter, hmmm. I was using it for The Simmertones and I can see how it might work for bands but it's very much a "right here, right now" medium, unless of course you get retweeted and/or followed by millions!

This leads us to my last point and what is perhaps the biggest problem for bands these days; all bands, whatever level they’re at. I first wrote “record buying public” rather than “listener” when I was writing this but does that apply anymore? The internet and other technologies have made it so easy for people to get your music for free. Some do it maliciously, knowing that they’re avoiding buying your songs - the songs that you’ve spent money recording, producing, mastering and pressing. Others do it more innocently, thinking that they’re helping you spread the word or that giving a copy to a friend or hosting it on a filesharing ‘site is okay; “It doesn’t hurt, they’re selling loads, what does one copy matter?”

Actually yes, it does matter; it’s our intellectual and artistic property! We want people to hear it, sure, but on our terms. We want to be able to decide when we can afford to give something away for nothing. When we're in the position where we can write it off and recoup costs on a stadium tour or by selling a pile of t-shirts......

Okay, rant over but I hope you get my drift. If we all share music without a thought for the bands and singers then maybe we won’t have those band and singers around. Support them by listening to them legally whenever possible. Share the things the bands want you to share and please, please, please pay for that tune!

* Yep, the proper version of Chnages off Black Sabbath 4, not Ozzy Kelly's sickly remake