Dear john,
Sometimes reading the newspapers or watching TV, you might think nothing is happening – but far from it. In just the past fortnight, we’ve had plenty of developments on issues that people have often raised with me in the past.
Housing, dentistry, ambulances and crime have also seen steps forward. So I thought I would just gather them together to better inform people!
Housing
As part of its long-term plan for housing, the government has announced that every council in England will be told that they will need to prioritise brownfield developments and instructed to be less bureaucratic and more flexible in applying policies that might halt housebuilding on brownfield land.
The bar for refusing brownfield plans will also be made much higher for those big city councils who are failing to hit their locally agreed housebuilding targets. Planning authorities in England’s 20 largest cities and towns will be made to follow a ‘brownfield presumption’, if housebuilding drops below expected levels. This will make it easier to get permission to build on previously developed brownfield sites, helping more young families to find a home.
Why does this matter? Because we have seen too much building on greenfield sites in Wyre, relaxing brownfield restrictions in larger cities, will help reduce that pressure. I remain very worried about Labour proposals to remove the right of Councils to object to planning proposals on greenbelt (not just greenfield) leading to Fleetwood, Thornton-Cleveleys and Poulton definitively merging as the greenbelt between them disappears.
Dentistry
We all know finding an NHS dentist has become ever harder. Despite great effort by myself to expand pathways for those needing urgent local treatment, the solution to reopening access for routine appointments lay with national government and NHS.
So the new plan for dentistry will make a significant difference.
The highlights are:
Significantly expand access so that everyone who needs to see a dentist will be able to. This will begin with measures to ensure those who have been unable to access care in the past 2 years will be able to do so - by offering a significant incentive to dentists to deliver this valuable NHS care. We are introducing mobile dental vans to take dentists and surgeries to isolated under-served communities.
We will also
- raise the minimum payment for a unit of dental work paid to dentists to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable
- attract dentists into areas in need with ‘golden hello’ payments, starting with a first cohort of up to 240 dentists later this year
- apply a firmer ringfence on NHS dentistry budgets for 2024 to 2025 so local health authorities can seek to improve dental access with this budget
- commence work this year to ensure that the funding provided to ICBs for NHS dentistry better reflects changing population demographics, such as ageing in coastal communities
‘Smile for Life’ - a major new focus on prevention and good oral health in young children, to be delivered via nurseries and other settings providing Start for Life services, and promoted by Family Hubs. We will also introduce dental outreach to primary schools in under-served areas.
We will also ramp up the level of dental provision in the medium and longer term by supporting and developing the whole dental workforce, increasing workforce capacity as we have committed to do in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, reducing bureaucracy and setting the trajectory for longer-term reforms of the NHS dental contract.
Proof of the pudding will be in the eating – but these national measures will help complement what is being done locally.
Ambulances
By last Christmas, 75 new paramedics and 32 emergency medical technicians had joined the North West Ambulance Service with more due to be in post by March 2024. There will be 72 new recruits for the Patient Transport Service and 250 new call handlers for the 999 and NHS 111 contact centres.
We are also increasing the number of clinicians working in our 999 contact centres. They help get patients the right care for their needs by providing healthcare advice over the phone or making referrals to an alternative health or care service in the community.
An additional 32 emergency ambulances will be out responding to patients by February,
increasing the number of emergency ambulances operating across the region to 553.
Total resources in the Fylde area at present include 15 emergency ambulances, 2 rapid response vehicles, 16 senior/advanced paramedics, 77 paramedics, 58 emergency medical technicians of which 12 are student paramedics. These are not all operational at any one time but make up the entire operational resource for the area and are utilised over various shift patterns according to demand.
Additional funding to support urgent and emergency care recovery is allowing us to introduce two new ambulances providing 168 hrs of cover per week into the Fylde area. We have also been able to add an additional 42 hrs to our current rosters to improve working patterns for our staff and deliver extended hours of cover. This additional 210 hrs of newly funded cover (about 9% increase on our current cover in the area) will support our response to some of the sickest patients in the area.
Organised Crime
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Police and Crime Commissioner Andrew Snowden has praised Lancashire Police for their success in fighting organised crime through Operation Warrior, the force’s operation to deliver on his Police and Crime Plan Priority of disrupting and dismantling organised crime.
Since the launch of the Operation Warrior in November 2022:
· Arrests of crime gang suspects have gone up by 35%.
· Cash seizures from organised crime gangs have gone up by 103%.
· Jail time for organised crime gang members have gone up by 25%.
· The number of cannabis plants seized have gone up by 250%.
· The amount of class A and B drugs seized is up by 200%.
Lancashire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Andrew Snowden said:
“It is fantastic to see the continuous results delivered by Op Warrior, week in week out.
“I want Lancashire residents to know that we are tackling organised crime at full force and that Lancashire Police will act on information from the public to drive criminals out of our county.
“Thanks to the hard work of our officers, we are seeing more crime gang members arrested, huge quantities of drugs taken off our streets and we are hitting criminals where it hurts by seizing their cash and assets which they gained through criminality, and we are investing that money back into local communities.
“Having joined officers on multiple raids over the years, it is always fantastic to see their hard work pay off and to see these criminals put behind bars where they belong.”
Supt Graham Hill, the Head of Serious Crime, said: “Operation Warrior is about tackling serious and organised crime, protecting vulnerable people and making sure OCGs get the message that Lancashire is not a safe haven for them to operate in.
“Over the past 12 months we have dismantled a number of OCGs in the county, put their members behind bars and taken their cash off them. The latest arrests should send a clear message that this pro-active policing will continue. Anybody looking to engage in illegal activity in our county should expect to see police officers at their door.”
Operation Warrior targets both individuals and gangs involved in crime, as well as associated issues such as violence and intimidation, large scale drug supply, exploitation and fraud, all of which can cause serious harm to local communities.
Anyone with information about organised crime can contact Lancashire Constabulary or report anonymously to independent charity CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111. Information leading to an arrest could lead to a reward of up to £1,000.
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Yours sincerely,
Paul Maynard MP
Conservative
01253 473071
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