Week ending 4th March

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

At a time when poor NHS service is making the headlines, it was worrying to read that after a visit to the Pilgrim Hospital, the Care Quality Commission found that the United Lincolnshire NHS Trust was not providing effective care plans. Inspectors found patients were not always given enough support to help them eat and drink, and that steps were not being taken to ensure that people received effective, safe and appropriate care to meet their needs. Care plans did not always reflect the needs of patients and risk assessments in relation to falls, pressure sores and nutrition did not always provide enough detail or contain clear actions to minimise risk. The trust has until May 31st to make improvements to avoid possible prosecution or closure of services. But the question that must be asked is how long has all this been going on?

Star of the show in the latest issue of Lincolnshire Council’s Pravda – County News – is Boston North West County Councillor Andrea Jenkyns. Beneath the tantalising headline “Meet your member,” the full-page piece trumpets the councillor’s achievements. As far as political activity is concerned, the feature mentions the establishment of the Boston North West Action group in October 2009 - and the group’s campaign to make their neck of the woods alcohol-free by incorporating it into the borough’s designated areas where booze is banned. The group meets regularly and is clearly enthusiastically supported, and a recent report says “we now have many businesses, local councillors and parish councillors supporting our campaign. We even had a meeting with the Boston Borough Chief Executive to discuss how we are going to progress with it.” However, as long ago as July last year, the idea was firmly rejected by the BBI – so no progress will be made until after May at least. Has Councillor Jenkyns thought of standing for her local ward at the borough elections, we wonder. Membership of both borough and county councils is a valuable belt and braces as far as influence is concerned. We shall have to wait and see.

What will they think of next? Lincolnshire Police are apparently now sending firms that are victims of burglary DIY finger-printing kits to check their staff as suspects to save police time and money. We’ve heard about giving people the finger – but this is surely state of the art! Not only that, they cops want volunteers for other jobs, too. Chief Constable Richard Crompton told the News of the World: ‘We are interested in doing some work with volunteers, training them to assist at very, very low-grade forensic scenes. It’s not policing on the cheap, it is people volunteering to do their bit within society.” Of course.
Reader Steve D was struck by our piece in the week about the tarting up of Central Park. “Is it just me or do I detect a veritable frenzy of pointless but 'press luring' project activity by the council as the first rays of May's dawn forebodingly glimmer on the horizon?” he asked. “I endured a rather disturbing dream last night - an Ingram-like statue of Councillor Austin erected in the centre of the park, funded and project managed by Boston BID with throngs of "out-of-towners" being bussed in by "Into Town" to pay homage to the great man. Predictably and somewhat pleasingly, the statue fell off its plinth (shoddy funding and project management.)”
We’d hate to be accused of bias against the totally useless Boston Standard after we published its circulation figures last week which showed yet another slump. The figures for the equally totally useless Boston Target appeared a couple of days later and show the Target disposing of 20,331 copies a week - a fall of 17.4 per-cent, compared with the Standard’s slump of 12.6 per-cent to 8,756. We say “disposing” as the Target still gives papers away. It speaks volumes for a product when - even if you give it away - people still don’t want it!
A change of tack by the Standard this week in its bid to keep the town as high up the obesity league as possible. After weeks of giving away artery-clogging sausage rolls and jam filled biscuits, the paper is now offering a free pint of booze to every reader. What next? A toot of smack? The mind boggles.
The begging letters are out again to get people to take part in this year’s Big Boston Clean Up. Over the last three years volunteers have collected 29 tons of litter. Whilst we have nothing but praise for the community spirit that such a stunt engenders, the fact remains that during each nominated week over the past three years around ten tons of litter have been laying around Boston’s streets – which sounds like an awful lot. As we mentioned yesterday, one of the most common requests from residents in Placecheck areas is for additional effort to clear litter from their streets. Does this say something about the quality of service being provided by the borough’s cleansing department? Yes, it does.

On a similar note, whilst news of improvements in Boston’s Central Park was very welcome, one part of the story was definitely not for the faint-hearted. “Twenty years’ worth of discarded seed was recently removed from the aviary, in places three feet thick,” we were told by the latest Boston Bulletin. How on earth the little critters managed to fly is beyond us. Perhaps as well as an annual Big Boston Clean Up we should start a Big Birdhouse Clean Up as well.




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