eFocus 16: Grass cutting and bulk waste removal service restarts, community support fund, new service for patients and more

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Hello <<First Name>> <<Last Name>>

This is the 16th edition of e-Focus, bringing you the latest information from the Pelaw and Heworth Focus Team. It includes:

Bulk waste collection service and grass cutting restarts
Coronavirus community support fund
Gateshead Lib Dems say "Lockdown must be ended only when it is safe to do so"
New service for patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Join us

Let us know if there's anything you would like to see included in our next edition.

Please remember that we are here to help you. Contact us for advice or just for a chat at what is a very lonely time for many people. Our details, including our home phone numbers, can be found here

Keep safe and well,
Councillor Ian Patterson & Councillor Paul Diston
Pelaw and Heworth Lib Dem Focus Team

Bulk waste collection and grass cutting restarts

Two important council services suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic have now restarted. These are bulk waste collections from households and grass cutting.

If you have bulk waste which you are unable to take to the newly reopened municipal waste sites, you can now book the Council to collect it. Bookings can be made online on this link.

The service will be busy catching up on the last few weeks when no service was in operation but the Council reports that a small number of slots are available this week. Otherwise, please book slots over the next few weeks.

Coranavirus community support fund

A coronavirus community support fund has been established. This new funding stream makes available £200 million in Government funding that will be aimed primarily at small to medium organisations in England.

The Fund has two key objectives:

To increase community support to vulnerable people affected by the COVID-19 crisis, through the work of civil society organisations.
To reduce temporary closures of essential charities and social enterprises, ensuring services for vulnerable people impacted by COVID-19 have the financial resources to operate, and so reduce the burden on public services.

Grants will allow organisations to meet service costs, where they are experiencing increased demand and/or short-term income disruption. Grants will also allow organisations to refocus services to address more immediate needs in light of COVID-19.

If you would like to learn more visit here

Gateshead Lib Dems say "Lockdown must be ended only when it is safe to do so"

According to Public Health England, Gateshead has the highest rate of Covid -19 infections of any local authority. The North East is the worst infected region with three times the rate of the least infected area, the South West.

In the Journal newspaper, Councillor Ron Beadle, who is Deputy Leader of the Gateshead Liberal Democrats on Gateshead Council, argues that the North East must resist the Government if it rushes to end the lockdown on the basis of national data, if it is unsafe to do so here. You can read Ron's article here

New service for patients at Queen Elizabeth Hospital

Staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead have launched several new services that are designed to help patients and their loved ones stay in touch while ward visits are suspended.

The new ‘Message to A Loved One’ service will help keep patients and their family and friends in contact with one another during the Covid-19 crisis. People can send a message to a dedicated email address, which will then be passed on to the patient.

Messages can be sent to ghnt.messagetoalovedone@nhs.net. To make sure it gets to the right person, you must also include:

the patient’s name;
the ward number or name;
either the date of birth or the address of the patient.

For those who don't have access to email, they can phone 0191 445 6047 or 0191 445 6129 between 10am and 12pm, Monday to Friday.

Meanwhile, the new ‘Dear Friend’ service encourages members of the public, of any age, to send in a letter anonymously which can then be passed on to those patients who may not receive any communication from family or friends.

Also, each ward has been issued with an iPad for ‘virtual visiting’ via Skype or FaceTime, and the bedside entertainment system is now free at the point of use for patients, so they can make calls free-of-charge and watch a range of TV channels

Join us

The new Liberal Democrat Leader will be chosen by members over the Summer. The Party now has over 100,000 members with record numbers in Gateshead. If you are a party supporter there really is no better time to join than now and you can become a member form as little as £1 a month. To join visit here

Alternatively you can register as a supporter for free here.

If you would like to know more please contact Ian or Paul here.