I’ve been working with Mark on an online version of the cost of living survey that he recently put in the Hampshire Chronicle.
Surveys are still coming in and we are still collating the full results, but Mark already used the early results in a debate on the cost of living on July 9th.
We’ve decided to switch our office to using electricity from Ecotricity – so the press turned up yesterday to take some pictures in the back garden of our office.
Reassuringly, it doesn’t cost any more than the standard tariff from a non-green supplier.
We’ve had pictures of Mark and I waving low energy lightbulbs around before when we switched all the bulbs in our office.
Here’s one of the rare pictures from yesterday where we’re not all waving light-bulbs around – only one of us is:
On a more substantive note, the head of ecotricity has a thought-provoking blog at zerocarbonista.com. His view is that the biggest barrier to more wind energy in the UK is the planning system – not lack of feed-in tariffs:
Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.
And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.
I’m loth to see any decisions move towards central government without a very good reason – overall, I’d like to see more local decision-making, not less – but there may be a case for making it a county council decision – like minerals and waste.
I’d also like to see CO2 as an explicit factor in all relevant council and government decisions. Crediting new wind turbine developments against councils’ carbon targets could be another, more local, way to address the issue.
More on the zerocarbonista blog about feed-in tariffs and planning here.
Another green energy supplier used by Lib Dems (including our national office) is Good Energy.
I was very encouraged to see today’s Hampshire Chronicle report on how Winchester’s local hospital is making progress in the battle against MRSA.
Back in January, following an invitation, I accompanied the RHCH Medical Director, Dr Kevin Stewart, on one of the daily ward rounds by the executive team to inspect the hospital environment and see that action is taken on areas that need work.
We spent two hours visiting the hospital – mainly in Florence Portal House – seeing the improvements that are being made and discussing the infection control programme.
I’ve been particularly interested in infection control for several years. Earlier in my career, I was involved in setting up public hygiene programmes in developing countries – teaching mothers and children basic handwashing habits can have a dramatic effect on infant health and mortality - and have previously met with experts in infection control to learn more about it.
It was very encouraging to see how totally committed the hospital’s management team and staff are to improving infection control and creating a culture of cleanliness within the hospital – and how hard the staff are working to improve things. It was clear that their top priority is to get the essentials right: regular hand-washing and hand-sanitising – reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics – making the hospital easy to clean and keeping it clean. I was amazed how many hospitals didn’t mention handwashing or sinks in the recent Panorama survey the BBC published alongside their ‘How clean Is your hospital’ programme (although RHCH did). Hand sanitiser (essentially alcohol with bit of glycerin and perfume thrown in) is good as far as it goes, but, if there is any dirt on the hands, it is not as good as soap and water.
We also talked about their programme of ‘prescribing’ the insertion of cannulae. It’s been getting great results and it’s very good to see RHCH taking a national lead on finding innovative ways to go beyond the basics.
Most of the time, the best thing that politicians can do about the NHS is stay out of the way of local health professionals. The one area where they can need more support is in ensuring they have enough funding to pay for the right number of beds for the number of patients they have and to modernise the wards to make it easier to isolate people who get an infection.
I know Mark Oaten and I are committed to doing everything we can to make sure that the hospital has the funding and support it needs to do this. As recently reported on Panorama, if beds are used too intensively, it can increase the risk of infection – even if everything else is done right. It’s essential that the hospital gets the support it needs to keep reducing bed occupancy rates and to continue driving down infection rates.
A very good report from Briony Leyland on the threat to Winchester’s Textile Conservation Centre.
What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the Government are flunking their responsibilities here. Ian Pearson’s answer to a question that Mark asked in Parliament makes this particularly clear.
But it’s probably best to let the report speak for itself!
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Just back from an excellent meeting about Littleton Post Office in Littleton Village Hall – exceptionally well chaired – and very constructive. Around 200 people were there to question two senior post office managers about the plans to close Littleton Post Office.
A wide range of very strong points were made challenging the assumptions behind the proposed closure – particularly the assumptions made by the Post Office about how easy it would be for people using public transport to get from Littleton to Stoney Lane, the assumptions about how easy it is to get there on foot and the assumptions about how easy it would be for people who use cars to park and use the Post Office (particularly while Waitrose is being built).