King's Lynn Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Middleton Drain, Elizabeth Truss, Church of the Year and library in Lynn News letters

Of course, it remains to be seen as to whether the improving situation will be maintained!

Barry Tomlin,

King’s Lynn

QEH

Look at those in charge

Once again a ‘Chief Executive’ of a failing part of our local NHS provision offers gritty words of determination and resolves to get to grips with the issues surrounding his or her particular department.

Lessons are always ‘learned’ and always more work is needed and despite working for three years to get control of finances and a workforce which clearly still operates under a culture of bullying and harassment.

At what point should the head of a service which never emerges from a revolving door of failure and poor delivery of services feel they might need to walk away from the job?

Here in King’s Lynn our QEH has laboured under a cloud of special measures and failures and, as with the head of ambulance services, we heard endless determined pledges to change things and create new cultures and working environments and yet we see little or no improvement.

These people aren’t running burger vans or cloakrooms. These people have our lives in their hands and while years roll by and nothing improves I suggest the culture which needs changing is a culture which persists in flogging a dead horse.

If, after three years of constant efforts to turn things around, we still find we have bullying, harassment and special measures in place I suggest we need to look at those holding the reins and hold them to account with some urgency. Things cannot continue like this. It’s wrong.

Steve Mackinder,

Denver

POLITICS

Not wowed by supporters

So, the woman standing in the footsteps of the blessed Margaret Thatcher (Elizabeth Truss) has metaphorically ‘thrown her hat into the ring’ of the internecine Conservative Party Leadership Election!

I hope the current Foreign Secretary has ‘thick skin’ because it’s going to be “bloody” …. or in Ms Truss’s case – “catty”?

However I wish her well. Sadly though, I’m not impressed with at least two members of her supporting team: Nadine Dorries, and Jacob Rees-Mogg: who, in my opinion are not fit for office, - any office - and will only detract attention away from her Tory party campaign ..

Unfortunately, this Tory leadership squabble is all about cutting tax. Cutting tax is not going to help those hundreds of thousands of ‘struggling families’ literally on the bread-line. Going to food banks for their existence. They won’t benefit from any cut in taxation?

Obviously, this egregious war of words between the various Conservative Leadership hopefuls – is who can be the most creative tax cutter – to present before the 2,000 fully paid-up members of Norfolk’s Conservative Party.

However, cutting welfare to pay for these tax-cuts, rather diminishes the ‘help’ that many of the most elderly Tory voters (because of an aging population) now depends.

Therefore, can we see something along the lines of “compassion” in this Conservative Party election? A ‘one-nation’ Conservative leadership election. Benefitting the majority of folk in the country. Not just those fortunate people with both money and power.

Jim Mitchell,

Carlton Colville

AWARDS

Church of Year hunt

The search is on for the UK’s Church of the Year as part of a new National Church Awards scheme celebrating local parish churches and the people who look after them.

The National Church Awards are open to any church, chapel or meeting house in the UK and are free to enter. The closing date for entries is Monday 1 August 2022.

The National Church Awards will culminate in a high profile ceremony to be held at the historic Mercers Company Livery Hall in the City of London in October 2022.

Other categories for the 2022 awards are: Church architecture, Church maintenance, Church volunteers, Church tourism.

Claire Walker,

Chief Executive, National Churches Trust

QEH

This made for grim reading

The Department of Health reply yesterday to my letter of 16 March, about the urgent requirement for the QEH rebuild in King’s Lynn, made for grim reading. The DoH says the longlist for the further eight hospitals for rebuild will be announced “later in the year” and that the process will “take some time” and inform the pipeline of investment, “subject to future funding settlements”.

This chilly response echoes Captain Oates’ last words, before his last fatal venture into the South Pole icescape.

The QEH has over 1,500 props and is the most propped-up hospital in the country. Forty operations had to be cancelled last March because the roof was falling in.

How many more props does the QEH have to have, before the Government makes a decision? Parts of the hospital will start to close after 2030 if it is not rebuilt, and surrounding hospitals have no spare capacity. This is about patient safety.

“The department is committed to a balanced and robust selection process and the analysis will take some time.”

This does not inspire confidence. How balanced and robust does the DoH need to be when you know the hospital is coming to the end of its life?

It just adds to the agony for Lynn. The announcement about the longlist was going to be last September, then in May, then before Parliamentary recess and now the Government has moved the goalposts yet again.

But when will it be? It needs to be now.

The Government needs to put Lynn first. We are a deprived rural area, with high levels of frail elderly, and the QEH serves three counties, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.

The Government isn’t levelling up for Lynn.

West Norfolk’s low wage, low skill economy cannot thrive without investment and full replacement infrastructure for its largest employer, the QEH.

Norfolk County Council’s leadership wants to put Lynn at the back of queue for Motions to Council in new changes. The Government still won’t set the date for our hospital rebuild.

Can you help target NHS resources for the rebuild into Lynn where they are most needed?

Alexandra Kemp,

Independent county councillor, Clenchwarton and Lynn South

NATURE

Good news on the River Hun

It made exhilarating reading (Lynn News, July 12) about the plans of the Norfolk Rivers Trust to restore a stretch of the ancient River Hun with a view to encouraging wildlife back. It was in stark contrast to the regular reports of building contractors ripping up the county in this paper.

As a priority the banks need regeneration where a lot of small mammals feed off it, and to this end a lot of vegetation needs planting, but it is encouraging that water voles have been spotted.

What will enhance more habitat for wildlife as well as wetlands is afforestation, especially of an ornithological nature.

If all the plans come to fruition an increase in birdlife will be testament to this including species such as the dipper and kingfisher, the latter feeding off plentiful fish stock, but this will necessitate management of the water.

While I’m on the subject of birds I have observed a negligible population of swallows this summer! Have other twitchers noticed this trend?

David Fleming,

Paradise Court, Downham