Social Services and the new Richmond Rapid Response and Re-ablement team

(Update - Greater London Authority's contribution is dance)

There is no money for social services, housing benefit or health but there is still a National Tennis Acadamy down the road and, I read £100 million for one of several unpopular higher education colleges to build a Cultural and Education District in Stratford. That's University College London that is 79th most popular out of 83 colleges for teaching economics. University of the Arts is the least popular of any higher education institution on unistats, using the Complete University Guide or Guardian University Guide to the figures. And Saddlers Wells, who dance apparently. Don't you want to string these people up from a lamp post? It's still illegal, but if you did it in artistic form to an orchestra you might get a grant for it.

You could write to them - there is a web site to find your GLA member who is probably Tony Arbour and send an email, or it can find london-wide assembly members as a list that you can compare against the GLA budget committee membership. I found one with a long-term interest in the arts who is on the committee and wrote to her. No reply after a week.

I have suggested to the GLA that they get their lobby briefs from these agencies checked and put them up for comment by the public before believing every word about public benefit and repeating every world class cliche.

Social services don't exist on a scale to match demand

It turns out that neither Richmond council's social services nor Richmond Rapid Response and Re-ablement Team exist on a scale to match demand. Council social services can find private visiting help and send a list of details, or manage it for a £50 weekly admin fee. They might offer a free assessment, and they can post a list of agencies which provide home visiting staff, leaving a patient or carer to check them against care quality commission reviews and find out the price.

Richmond Rapid Response and Re-Ablement team, part of a new local NHS trust, was unable to make appointments or keep-up with requests for decisions from West Middlesex hospital for most of 22nd of December 2017.

There used to be some kind of home service run from Barnes Hospital, but this doesn't appear to exist either

In a country that can afford Trident, MI5, and the Commonwealth Games with a local council that can afford new street furniture as part of a local village plan.
Can I have my tax back, please, if it is not going to be spent on sensible things?

Social care without social services

From someone who has to do a little bit of work as a carer, I understand this

There is a machine called a pivotelli that can open a pill box, ring a buzzer, and text a carer if the person who needs pills forgets to take them.

A simpler version from a couple of suppliers has no mobile texting system built-in

There is a flat-screen clock that displays day, date, and time in a simple way once set-up.

An offer of these, free at the point of delivery, to anyone suspected of bad memory problems by hospital staff or a GP, could automate some of the problem-solving that social services are asked to do. Patients differ, but if the things are doled-out to the wrong person, that's only about £100 cost and no great human stress, except maybe to the patient who has to turn the thing on and can't work-out how.

If anyone who works in social services could try to get together a list of tasks that need automating or simplifying by making free at the point of delivery, then I am sure a lot of the work could be reduced.

Lifts: I am no so sure about this idea but think there is something in it

Another relatively cheap solution is the fitting of a straight-line stair lift. These things are not very good. They are slow. They are beige. Frail people can fall-off them, so in some situations a carer could be needed as well as a lift. Wheelchairs do not slot-on to the things as far as I can see. But they are often available second-hand for next to nothing, and the ones that go round corners are only a few hundred pounds more.

I suggest that everyone over the age of 70 or who is thought at risk of needing a stair lift should be offered one, with fitting, free. That way, when the time comes, they can come home from hospital with less work from social services (who don't exist) to get a lift fitted.

More practical is a through-floor lift, or one fitted out of doors. The price for a through-floor seems rather elastic. I heard of a quote of £11,000 for one delivered months after payment and after much pushing from an unstable company (British Homelifts), but the cutting of the hole in the floor and the assembly of large macano-like devices is contracted-out, and the lifts themselves from Pollock, Terry, Wessex, or ? Dolphin often come-round second-hand for free. About half the ads on ebay say in the small print that they are from contractors and that you can contact them for a quote to install.

http://www.for-sale.co.uk/through-floor-lift

There is a UK firm that makes in China called Stiltz as well. A lot of the skill seems to be assembling local contractors willing to cut a hole, install a lift, and check it works; the cost of the lift itself is not the problem.

https://www.london.gov.uk/in-my-area/richmond-upon-thames

On another subject I should mention this in a future post some time. Greater London Authority's page for Richmond on Thames

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voterpower.org.uk/richmond-park

I started a post about voter power a year ago and though it wasn't worth pressing "publish", but my next post about absent services makes it important.

For my vote, I think we have this PR system now:

• Vote for one of the top two candidates in any marginal constituency
• Vote for a favourite candidate in a non-marginal constituency, just to save their deposit and encourage.

The current system has no chance to say who I would like to be the runner-up candidate in a marginal constituency; it is down to tradition. There is no chance to encourage a new splinter party, or for a big old party to split in two. There is no signal for a non-marginal constituency, where the two runners-up get more votes than the winner, to know that it should vote like a marginal constituency with nearly all votes cast for the top two.

Voters in Richmond Park are used to this and you see "Labour for Lib Dem" posters or similar at elections. The Labour vote of 5773 was less than the party membership in the constituency.

MPs are used to putting-up with large political parties that don't reflect their views.
They simply remain silent about views that the party does not want known.
Labour MPs have had to work with Blair and Corbyn; Conservative MPs have a Brexit split. One group can become the majority in a party, or another. The more right wing group in each political party, I think, are rather similar. They don't want the state to run compulsory insurance-like services such as social care or non-emergency health or unemployment pay or anything like that, but they keep quiet about it. Here's the proof:

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24911/zac_goldsmith/richmond_park/votes#welfare

Anyway this post was saved and not posted a year or two ago, and it seems relevant to the next one
http://election-richmond-park.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/social-services-and-new-richmond-rapid.html
I think it's a problem that

• council social services don't exist for most of us (nor pay a decent care home fee for those who run out of money)
• NHS services for people with dementia or learning difficulties barely exist, and the home support part of the service seems not to exist. That's the service based at Barnes Hospital which is being redeveloped for housing - the subject of the last post
• The new Hounslow and Richmond health trust and it's Rapid Response and re-ablement service for people leaving hospital in Richmond doesn't seem to exist either, or at least not on a bank holiday when West Middlesex hospital tried to use them

If any of the 5773 labour voters change their mind in the next election, and want one less MP under the Conservative Party whip, I hope they come out and vote.

Here is the stuff I wrote a year or two ago without pressing "publish"

MP Election results in Richmond Park

voterpower.org.uk/richmond-park

electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Richmond%20Park

cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=82&RPID=19098753

The voter power people seem very keen on more proportional representation between parties over a large area like the UK . An aim which, at the Greater London Authority, has led to party list candidates who refuse to do any work for a voter unless "a constituent", as the green list member's secretary fed-back to me, so I'm not keen, because he did nothing. (All I needed was a way to meet British Fashion Council to suggest how to help UK manufacturers. He needed to come-along. The conservative directly elected member and the liberal party list member turned me down as well)

The UK Alternative Vote referendum in 2011 was about more proportional representation in each constituency, achieved by giving fringe party voters a chance to re-allocate their vote after voting Labour or Green or whatever candidate is a likely number three four or more in each constutuency. Sadly, an expensive party advertising campaign blasted voters with untrue facts, each made clear as nonsense in The Independent at the time, but blasted loudly enough to win them the vote. I think it would be great to get alternative votes at least in the areas that voted for them in the referendum. Southwark is the example I know. There are probably others. Meanwhile, all UK MPs are elected by one constituency with third and fourth candidate voters unable to say "I wanted number 1 or 2 but also wanted to help choose who comes second next time".

Some people think we don't have a constituency PR system, including some of the 5,773 labour voters last time. I don't understand their reasoning - is it to cheer up the Labour cause and save the candidate's deposit? Or do they see Liberal and Conservative as so similar that there is no point encouraging one over the other? Maybe they see the Swingometer on TV and want to show support for a party that doesn't get in in their constituency. All sensible reasons to vote, but I just don't understand why 5773 people voted that way when the Lib / Con margin is so narrow.

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