[Edinburgh-carecampaign] Happy New Year - Update

[Marlyn Tweedie]

Happy New Year!  Hope you had a lovely break.

Some of you haven't been able to open the minutes etc that I've attached.
I'm going to try and fix this  but ,in the meantime, I'll just send
1 - hopefully not too long e-mail.

I'm going to include  brief minutes of the last 2 campaign meetings   and
the gist of the deputation made to the Council on 17th Dec. '09
Finally details of our next meeting.

1) Minutes of Meeting   - 18th Nov. '09     Present; Marlyn;Jan; Sheila.

We discussed public meeting on 25th Nov. '09 in Portobello.
Group have had regular stalls in the High Street and had a positive response
from the public. Agreed speakers and chair and to continue advertising it.

Marlyn reported that the previous Wed - 11th Nov. - there was a demo outside
the City Chambers following the threat to tender packages of care from
organisations like Link; Garvald; Penumbra etc to cheaper organisations
e.g. Choices  who pay £6.05p an hour.!
The demo was 300-400 strong; it involved service-users; their
relatives,carers and staff.
One of the slogans was "we are not for sale"

We heard of a situation where a very elderly woman with multiple problems  -
deaf; blind; mobility problems etc. had a package of care from Carewatch  -
yes same as Panorama -  She repeatedly  put up with routine lateness; at
weekends continual missed visits. Those visits where someone came it was
often different carers who didn't know what the tasks were.
The situation seems now to have become untenable.
This service-user had her son living with her. What if she was alone with
no-one to speak up?    Minutes   Marlyn


Minutes of   Meeting 2cd Dec. '09   Present    - Lorrainne; Flo; Sheila;
Marlyn

Public Meeting    - 25th Nov. -   It was a rainy night; turnout was low but
significant  - a carer (who's employed by Carewatch); the wife of someone
who has dementia;
Phyllis Herriott came along despite the terrible weather and her recent
fall.
And 4 Councillors from the area.

The speaker made an excellent case using first hand knowledge, The
discussion was moving  - particularly the plights of the carer and the wife
of the service-user.

Meeting agreed to keep in touch with them.

Report given on the Council Meeting of  19th Nov. where the Council split on
the motion of agreeing tenders to over 700 packages of care.

The Campaigning group   - SWAN   - Support Workers Action Network  - had
done a brilliant job of building a struggle against this.  There were
deputatations that went on all day. So impressive were they - and the
campaigners who packed out the Public Gallery and the overflow room - that
the SNP/ LD coalition were defeated - by 1 vote-.
This is the first time this has happened.

As I  listened to the deputations, I heard Councillor Eadie try to justify
this tendering disgrace by saying that the Council were already tendering to
organisations  - implying there were*  no problems*.  Fortunately the
deputations were wise to this and one spoke of the Panorama programme
Britain's Homecare Scandal.

I thought of all the examples of awful care our campaign has come across.
Minutes Marlyn




This e-mail is already quite long so I'm going to send out a separate one
re. deputation to Council on 17th Dec.

Our next meeting is Wed. 13th Jan. '10 at 6pm   - probably at City Chambers
but rooms aren't booked yet.  I'll confirm.
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