What should be free if you apply through an official NHS site can come with an administration fee through other sites which look just as official and legitinmate. It’s disgraceful that this sort of scam cannot be stamped out. Everyone travelling to the EU from the UK is advised to get the E111 certificate to facilitate access to healthcare if they need it. Application on the net is simple or so it seems. Sites like http://www.nhs-e111-ehic.org.uk/?gclid=COC9152Nm7cCFfLKtAod-w8A5w look official and will supply the certificate but make an administration charge. Its comes up top of the google search and with nhs in domain name looks pretty official but if you go to the NHS business site http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcareabroad/EHIC/Pages/about-the-ehic.aspx you can not only apply for the certificate free but there is a warning that other sites may charge an administation fee.

So not illegal but disgraceful and what can be done to protect travellers?

I am delighted that this awful advertsing banner has been removed from Wilbraham Road. This is clearly part of big business. This is not paper fliers and wallpaper paste advertising a gig but serious business trying to use a pedestrian barrier at a dangerous junction as a prime advertising location. I wonder if the council is chasing them and prosecuting them as a deterrent or will Manchester City Council again prove ineffectual as they have in stopping the invasion by those unsightly metal boxes for clothes. These again are clearly big business so let’s not think this is charitable work. I expect that banner will just be reloctated on a regular basis until they find a spot where no-one is complaining. Certainly it doesn’t appear local councillors are doing much about some of the awful sights on our area.

Isn’t it interesting that a pathway is blamed for less than good care of people who are dying when actually any failure is of human making. The Channel 4 Dispatches programme was interesting but sadly may have done nothing to improve the care of people who are dying in hospital, where most of us will die. Modern hospitals are death-denying places where dying is somehow seen as failure. Fortuneately the palliative care physician in the programme presented a balanced view whilst certain of the other medical professionals came across as arrogant and full of self importance doing nothing to improve the care of dying people. My own experience is that in many parts of acute hospital staff of all variety struggle to be open and honest with the people they are employed to care for at the end of life. The Liverpool Care for the dying Pathway is a valuable tool to promote good practice but isn’t crazy to think a pathway does it alone. Its the way its used that is important. I do hope that a few bad examples which made good TV are not allowed to derail what in my opinion is a step forward.

When I asked the then chair of an NHS Trust why we did not have a palliative care unit in the hospital i was told ‘It would be seen as the death ward’. So how is that different from a hospice I ask? It showed me the depth of denial. My experience using the pathway with staff committed to improving the care of the dying was that communication was everything and when patients and relatives saw first hand the care they received they were very grateful.

I have picked up again Christopher Bryant’s book ‘Jung and the Christian Way’ and it resonnates much more strongly now that when i first dipped into it.

“Jung was highly critical of the general run of theologians for being out of touch with the needs of men and women in the contemporary world. He thought their attitude too cerebral. They were too concerned in his opinion with trying to prove the existence of God and not concerned enough with helping people to realise God in their experince. he says of them
‘With a truly tragic delusion these theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of theologians proving the existence of light but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach the people the art of seeing.’

This I have come to know in my own life in a very prowerful way. What a difference it has made to me and what change has happened since I came to know God in my every day life and have been willing to listen to and be guided by God as opposed to thinking I know the way all the time.

How good it is to see support for the restoration programme for Alexandra Park expressed so positively in emails circulating around the Friends Group. Many recognise that there will be some short term loss for the much bigger gain as new life is injected in our wonderful park. We need to spread the word much wider in whatever way we can. The Friends Fcbk Group is one way as is Twitter.

If you support the restoration programme post a message.

https://www.facebook.com/AlexParkMcr

http://friendsofalexandrapark.com/the-park/

@AlexParkMcr

Last year before the election in May, the Labour run council announced that Chorlton’s Swimming Pool and Library would be relocted to a new facility as part of the development of Chorlton Precinct. The council has now made a U-Turn and is proposing putting the swimming pool at Hough End, not even in Chorlton. Whilst closure of Withington Swimming Pool was not proposed before the election last year I would not be surprised if they were actually looking at that option but saying nothing because they would not have wanted it to surface during an election year. This year there are no local elections so I expect we will see the council doing all sorts of things they hope we forget next year.

Chorlton Liberal Democrats have launched a campaign to Save Chorlton Baths. If you want more information or to join the campaign go to: -

Let me know how this proposal by the council might affect you.

I am apalled that direct action by people who claim to be tree lovers is interfering with the start of work to restore our historic Alexander Park which is a Grade II listed park in Whalley Range. They may love tress but they cleary have no feelings for other people especially those in the local community who have worked so hard over the last 10 years to secure funding for the £4m restoration programme. The Friends of the Park have worked particularly hard. I hope that the council will indicate at the next meeting of the Friends how they propose to proceed and not risk the loss of the Lottery funding.

This is what the headline about the Heritage Lottery restoration of Alexander Park should be as Chris Sedman says. Instead of that there are those who are deliberately misrepresenting facts to try to scupper over £4m of investment and this at the end of 10 years hard work and numerous public consultations. Headlines and videos about the number of trees to be removed seek to build up emmotive opposition. The number includes self sown weed trees. It also includes trees the council should never have planted in the 70′s. For 40 years the trees in the park have not been well managed by the city council. Now we have the opportunity to restore this fabulous park.

Lets get behind the Friends of the Park and see this restoration become reality.