Harefield Gazette

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I WOULD like to tell my story to spread some happy news and to thank the NHS and Hillingdon Hospital neonatal ward.

My baby was born 11 weeks early we was discharged three weeks ago upon being discharged they gave me CPR training to do on a baby which I thought I would never have to use. Well how wrong was! On Sunday he woke for his morning feed,my husband lifted him from his moses basket to give his bottle but wasn’t interested. He placed him on his shoulder and said I will change his bum.

As he laid him on the bed he shouted something is wrong. I took one look and could see he was limp going gray and not breathing. I grabbed the baby (Henry) and told my husband to call an ambulance i placed my baby on the floor and stayed calm and started CPR my husband was telling me what the call handler was saying.

After a few minutes my baby’s eyes opened and he started breathing again.

The ambulances, two cars and a ambulance was there within eight minutes!

I was already at the front door shouting for them. They came in and Henry was alert. We travelled by ambulance to A&E.

When was he was getting assessed he stopped breathing again and the crash team was called. They took over his breathing and the intensive care team came and placed him on a ventilator.

We was blue lighted by the KATS team and ambulance to St Mary’s where we are still in intensive care.

Today they want to take him off the ventilator! As he is doing well. He had caught an infection we still don’t know what one as waiting on results.

I just want to thank the NHS and nurse Jenny at Hillingdon Hospital who gave me my training as he would not be here today I saved his life because of what she showed me!

I want to thank all the paediatric team at A&E all the doctors and nurses with what is going on they saved my six-week-old baby boy .

IN THESE difficult circumstan­ces, it is terrible to see that the most vulnerable in our community are set to be hit the hardest. And yet, it has been incredibly encouragin­g to see our community reaching out to those in need.

Right now, foodbanks are struggling under the weight of increasing demand. Where possible, we can help out with our time, donations and financial support.

Help is also coming from City Hall, which has already launched a £2 million emergency support fund for community organisati­ons and set up a dedicated online page for volunteers.

The Mayor is also working to ensure homeless people can selfisolat­e, securing an initial 300 hotel rooms for this purpose.

In the meantime, I want to thank local people for following Government guidance, and for looking out for one another where they can.

THE coronaviru­s pandemic could well make airline companies obey stricter limits on their carbon emissions than they had expected.

Among other things this must surely be the final nail in the coffin for Heathrow’s controvers­ial third runway scheme.

A recent UN agreement meant that many countries were committed to keeping net carbon emissions from internatio­nal flights to 2020 levels.

Scientists had thought this too weak to prevent serious climate change as the plan used emissions from this year as a standard to let aviation grow – with the assumption that emissions would be higher than before.

However, the pandemic has greatly reduced flights all over the world. The result is that airlines will have to observe tougher limits than they had expected.

Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining.

DESPITE the fact that we are in the midst of a growing pandemic, and in amongst the negative commentary mirroring it, it was reassuring to see Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget contain significan­t plans to invest in the UK.

UK motorways and roads, for example, are set to benefit from a staggering £27 billion spend. We can assume that plans are afoot to improve our county’s infrastruc­ture, too.

We can also assume that many infrastruc­ture-led contractor­s will be vying for contracts to help the council spend the allocated money.

However, as the founding partner of a social enterprise – and the UK’s first ever data-driven media agency to hold social enterprise status – my thoughts immediatel­y turn to the social value that residents can expect to receive from major contractor­s over and above, for example, road maintenanc­e.

In addition to basic competence required to deliver a project, councils must consider the social value derived from awarding large sums of money to contractor­s; a point that may become even more pertinent once the shadow cast by the cloud of coronaviru­s is no longer present.

A contractor’s commitment to social value must be woven into the very fabric of a contract.

Great strides have been made since the introducti­on of the Social Value Act in 2012, which requires local authoritie­s to consider how procuremen­t could improve the social, economic and environmen­tal well being of an area. Indeed, many companies that we work with, such as Amey, now have social value plans in place that guarantee a percentage of profits is reinvested in the community and in initiative­s that have the potential to improve the lives of many.

Like Good Karma Media, Amey has joined the Buy Social Corporate Challenge; a move that has seen it commit to spend £1bn with social enterprise­s that reinvest in the communitie­s they serve. Whilst Good Karma Media’s budgets do not quite extend to that scale, we too have made a fixed – and immovable – commitment to reinvest 50 per cent of profits back into social value projects, be that supporting the long-term unemployed, helping abused women or assisting the regenerati­on of the honeybee population, all of which we do.

The point is that willingnes­s to invest by government at both national and local level should be applauded. The budget numbers outlined by both national government are substantia­l. So too, therefore, is the opportunit­y to boost social value in our county.

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