Autism Pathway ? - Cyngor Gwynedd Director Of SS Annual Report.

The Director of Cyngor Gwynedd Social Services, Morwena Edwards, has published her Annual report to be presented to the council on the 1st October.

Unlike the Welsh Government's generic report she presented last year, this report gives more detail of the performance of both the Adult and Children departments she is responsible for but like so many reports emenating from this council it doesn't seem to tell the whole story.

On page 31, under the title of Learning and Development, the Director makes mention that -

"The Department has been in contact with the Ombudsman's Office for some years now regarding one specific case....
The Department has received many recommendations from the Ombudsman, and one remains as outstanding; however, slippage has been seen in the work as a result of the Covid-19 crisis."

The Covid-19 crisis is only the latest 'reason' for 'slippage', so somewhat misleading....

 (There have been 5 Ombudsman investigation reports into both the Adult and Children departments - in 4 years.)

 

In June, 2019, the Chief Executive Officer, Dilwyn O Williams, sent a letter to the family apologising for all the failings upheld by the Ombudsman's investigation and informed that the Children's department had agreed to implement the recomendations by September, 2019.

 

 The Ombudsman's recommendation regarding autism is as follows -

"71. The Council should (within three months) seek specialist input to develop a plan for dealing with future assessment and support requests from/for those suffering with Autism."

 

The Council's action to meet this recommendation was to provide the Ombudsman's investigator with a copy of the "Integrated Autism Service (IAS) North Wales Update- February 2018" and a copy of the "supporting guidance" document.

No specialist input sought.  Just yet another attempt to avoid creating any 'pathway' for autistic individuals seeking social services care assessments or support. 

 

This 'evidence' was obviously not sufficient to meet the Ombudsman's recommendation and in October 2019, an officer of the Ombudsman for Wales contacted the council for an explanation of why the recommendations had not been completed as agreed and a phone call was arranged with the director Mrs Edwards to discuss compliance matters. Even though this call was arranged two weeks previous, - the council cancelled the call an hour before it was due.

 

The IAS do not carry out 'care assessments', that is the domain of health and social services, although autism advice can be sought from the IAS during the process.

 

As robust evidence of compliance was yet to be provided to the Ombudsman, in November 2019, the CEO was summoned to Cardiff to explain the 'slippage' to the Ombudsman, himself, we were also informed that the Ombudsman had other matters to discuss with the CEO..... 

(I wonder how much this cost Gwynedd taxpayers claimed as expenses but at least there was an opportunity for the CEO to do some Christmas shopping in the capital.)

 

Earlier this year, the CEO admitted that the Ombudsman for Wales is 'outraged' with Gwynedd council.

Not that outraged, as Nick Bennett could have published a 'Special Report' as he did with the Wrexham council when they failed to comply with recommendations agreed after an investigation.

 

All this was many months before the #Covid19 crisis and for the Director of Gwynedd SS to now use the pandemic as an excuse to cover for her departments failings is disingenuous.

 

When the pandemic took hold, the Ombudsman for Wales did indeed grant Cyngor Gwynedd extra time to comply with the recommendations for improvement. On the 11th June 2020, the Ombudsman wrote to the family - 

Fair enough - the pandemic has affected everything, though the Gwynedd council staff outing where one officer contracted the virus on a night out forcing an entire council group to self isolate for two weeks was not appreciated by anyone.

 

The Ombudsman wrote again to the family on the 24th August 2020 - 

 

        

So why is none of this mentioned in the Director's Annual report ? Sshh....Is it a secret ?

 

Something is very wrong within Gwynedd council.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silence From Unison And Unite Trade Unions. #BCUHB

With regard to the Robin #Holden report into Institutional Abuse at #BCUHB dated 2013, snippets of the report have appeared in the media informing of staff in tears and at the end of their tether working in the North Wales NHS mental health units. Issues of bullying are also said to be raised within the report.

The Information Commissioner had ordered BCUHB to release the report but the Board have refused and are appealing the ICO's decision. The Tribunal has a date of early 2021...

Local Trade Union branches in North Wales were recently approached for their thoughts and reaction to the report by the North Wales Community Health Council into Vascular services at BCUHB and in particular the worry of increased limb loss amongst patients. The use of antibiotics was also raised as a concern.

That report, dated 8th October, 2019, can be found here - 
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/900/Exec%20Minutes%2008102019%20%28APPROVED%29.pdf
It is a PDF document that will not open a new page but will be downloaded to your pc.

#Unison branches in the area were reluctant to give any response, some did not even acknowledge the question of if they were going to make a public statement on the damning report.

The decision by the local union officers to make no statement regarding the treatment of staff and the patients within the health board has come as a surprise to many members, especially after the shocking revelations now being made in the local press.

Now I may have expected too much from Unison as I am not a member so I approached my own union, Unite.

An acknowledgment was received from the BCU branch secretary and senior workplace rep, with regard to my inquiry, excerpts of which are reproduced below -

  ...concerns come through the recent review of the Board's Vascular Services and in particular claims of those in fear for their careers if they speak out.
Have the Trade Unions had contact with the Board and what has been the response from senior managers within the organisation - if any ?
There is also the issue of the Board discharging 1700 mental health patients from their services and the LA's having to pick up the pieces - during the lockdown.

The senior workplace rep, duly responded and on the 2nd June, said that they would be discussing with the regional officers and get back to me.

By early August, there had been no further response. I then came across a discussion on Twitter involving the Holden report and tagged both local Unison and Unite accounts into the thread hoping one would join in the conversation.

Whilst Unison did not respond - Unite simply blocked me...

The Unite rep did eventually get back to me via Facebook -

"As you are not a member of the BCU branch and you are not an employee of BCUHB I can’t provide you with that information im afraid. If you require information you will need to address your concerns to the Regional Secretary Peter Hughes at the Cardiff Office." 

Any union members that have concerns regarding work practices or whistleblowing in BCUHB may be better informing the regional organisers outside of the BCUHB region. The same goes for any Unison or Unite members within the local government organisations of North Wales.

Something is very wrong within the local government organisations of North Wales. 

 

#BCUHB Protecting Whistleblowers Or Their Managers ?

A recent #QSE report from the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board casts a little more light on the debacle surrounding the Robin Holden report, completed in 2013 but still not released by BCUHB, even after the recent Information Commissioner's Office ruling to publish under the FOIA. 

BCUHB have appealed this decision and a tribunal hearing is expected in early 2021.

The Quality, Safety & Experience report makes mention - 
It is vital the Health Board is able to give confidence to its community and stakeholders that the recommendations from the Holden Report (2013) have been implemented and sustained. The Executive Medical Director and Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery/Deputy CEO have commissioned work to validate that the recommendations have been implemented and remain in place at this current time...

...This work, due to the need to robustly validate the evidence, is aiming to be completed by the end of September for executive scrutiny and reporting to the QSE Committee at its next meeting in October 2020.

The report, authored by Matthew Joyes, Acting Associate Director of Quality Assurance who is also the Assistant Director of Patient Safety and Experience at the health board is titled 'Holden Report - Update' and is for the attention of Responsible Directors, in this case - David Feanley, Executive Medical Director and Gill Harris, Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery/Deputy Chief Executive.  

Bearing in mind, the Holden report was completed 7 years ago, it is concerning that only now 'responsible directors' are working towards ensuring that Holden's 19 recommendations have been implemented and sustained within the regions Mental Health Units.

Or is this ongoing work only now taking place to circumvent the ICO tribunal next year by presenting 'evidence' that all is now well in the mental health field and argue that the matter should be closed ? 

The update states that the Executive Director of Nursing and Patient Services made a personal visit to the Hergest Mental Health Unit in July, 2013, in order to speak to a number of staff who had raised concerns. A letter, dated 26th July, 2013, confirmed the exact nature of the allegations made by staff, also informing of a staff members petition of "No confidence in the Managment of the Mental Health Clinical Programme Group in their dealings with the Hergest Unit."  

The claimed institutional abuse within the BCUHB units, that included frail, elderly with dementia alongside other mental health patients, not only affected patients but staff, too.

Who were the managers responsible for the Mental Health Clinical Programme Group that failed so terribly ? Are the actions of BCUHB only to protect the managers and not the whistleblowers as claimed ?

Something is very wrong within the local government organisations of North Wales.

Rebuilding Communities - A Future For Gwynedd By Looking To The Past ?

A recent article, by Branwen Jones, a community reporter, has the headline - 
'Ban the sale of second homes or Welsh speaking communities face being wiped out, councillor claims' amid calls for a two tier market to be introduced in Gwynedd.

With nearly 40% of house sales bought as second homes last year, the paper returns us to 1973 and an article written by Ann Clwyd, the ex Labour MP, though makes no mention of Meibion Glyndŵr, a group of activists who, during the 1980's and early 90's set fire to over 200 English owned homes in the area and also letter bombed the estate agents they considered profitering from the house sales. 

Police reported finding a bomb in the garden of a local actor - (neighbours spoke of seeing a stranger in the garden the previous day) - and he was arrested and taken for questioning to Dolgellau. Rumours of MI5 involvement in the case were denied. Whilst the actor was finally released, one man was eventually jailed.

Many in the area were supportive of Meibion Glyndŵr, who saw the Welsh language being diluted and youngsters forced out of the area to seek housing and employment, ironically, in England. This was the time for local politicians and the council to act - they did not and the opportunity of buying cheap housing to improve and rent to locals was lost. It would be interesting to see the property portfolio's of those whose job it was to serve the local communities, back then and today.

Gwynedd Cabinet Member for Housing, Craig ab lago has said - "It doesn't matter how many homes we can build or how many empty ones we bring back into active use, until we sort out the root issue what we're doing is putting a sticking plaster over a gaping wound." 

The Councillor is right. 'Build more homes' has been the loud shout reverberating throughout Wales - mostly by those who can not think further than their own profitable links with property developers and the building industry. There is no need.

The idea of heavily taxing the property of wealthy incomers more, while attractive to many is also a non starter. Jersey is not a good example of how it could be done though not without some merit it will simply alienate and divide people even more.We must also remember that many locals have bought second homes as an investment and those who use such property as a business.

Cyngor Gwynedd recently revealed there are 1000 people on the housing list; coincidentally there are 1000 empty properties in the area. Let the council employ a small in-house team of builders, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, let them take on local youth as apprentices, renovate the empty homes and rent them to the apprentices who have been working on them. Then move on to the next house, creating job security and affordable rental housing as it goes. 

I do believe, Councillor, Craig ab lago, has been working on such a program but progress will be too slow without the council and its senior officers fully supporting him.

The scheme would eventually pay for itself by the rental income and council tax raised on the properties that are currently rotting and worthless. When the apprentices become the masters, let them teach the new influx of apprentices. They will eventually move on, hopefully start their own businesses and create opportunities for other local peiople.

Insulate these properties properly - with the climate crisis in mind carbon neutral would be the goal or as near as damn it. Llyr Gruffydd, Plaid Cymru shadow rural affairs minister has been vocal with regard to Welsh wool being used as insulation in homes to support the regions sheep farmers who have been on their knees for years. Excellent. Use the wood from the regions sustained forests and Welsh slate for the roofs, too. This would not only support these businesses but massively reduce the carbon footprint importing these products from abroad.

These homes would not be available to buy and their tenancies would be linked to their employment with the council. Creating jobs and security for the local youth in the area. Once the program has started then renovate the houses for those in need on the housing list.

So where will the money come from initially ? 
UK governments have always provided money for apprentice schemes so use those grants now while still available. Other grants will also be available Across the North Wales council's is a £2 Billion pension pot - much of which is invested abroad. Why not invest that money in schemes supporting the region(s) ?

Ask for those in the community with expertise and knowledge to come forward to pass on their skills to the youth and the unemployed; stonemasons, engineers, metal workers, fishermen, computer coders et al. The area is awash with retirees and others who would be more than happy to volunteer their time and knowledge as the recent covid19 crisis has shown.

Reopen the youth clubs and community centres so these skills can be taught in the local communities by the local community.These schemes run locally will not cost much and if small amounts of monies are needed then dip into the council reserves. Schemes such as these will also deal with the issue of gangs of bored, youth roaming the town centres and estates. Dispersal notices are not the answer as the reported attacks on police in Bangor have shown. These centres could also be used as a focal point for all ages within the community - a meeting place for music, sport and drama - as they used to be.

The effects of the Covid19 pandemic, on health and the economy, will be with us for decades. Gwynedd, its people and the Welsh language could thrive with the right leadership. The last forty years has shown where mistakes were made - those lessons must be learnt otherwise they will only be repeated.