Graham Jones

MONDAY’S TV broadcast of the shocking story of Accrington disability campaigner, 22 year Zack Kerr’s awful experiences with inadequate disabled changing facilities at Britain’s motorway service stations was appalling.

It was degrading to watch it.

There are 250,000 less abled people in the UK who need a little more when it comes to changing facilities, not just on motorways.

If you missed it, it is on BBC iPlayer – last Monday, 7.30pm Inside Out.

Like most PR conscious corporates, Zack was told by one leading provider that they provide great facilities across numerous service stations. Unfortunately for them Zack had done his homework and their ‘grand total’ was in fact no more than handful and none north of Birmingham..

Zack’s petition now has 125,000 signatures. Please sign it and a well done to the Beeb for a good piece on disability awareness.

Following on from that we had Panorama discuss parallel communities in Blackburn 10 years on from a similar programme. A revisit. It had high profile guests including Louise Casey and Ted Cantle, both who had produced reports for government that had been put on dusty shelves marked ‘too difficult to tackle’.

The upshot was that people had become more insular and more divided despite a handful of schemes to break down barriers.

Hyndburn is very different in many ways. People tend to get along a lot better. Maybe that’s because we, civic society and the councillors have a tendency to ignore identity politics and focus on people instead. There’s less emphasis on religion; advice centres have to be for all; and groups based on sectarian and ethnic interests tend to be frowned upon. We are all British, like it or not and British values are what are expected.

I’ve not been well recently. Acute bronchitis, but my efforts to get medical care highlight the failings of the NHS.

First off let’s get the untruths out of the way about the NHS. The NHS is seeing increased funding of 1.7 per cent per year, well below the 3.5pc post war average and health inflation is running at 3pc plus.

So NHS services are having to be cut/rationed by this government. Part of their problem is they passed an Act of Parliament, a chaotic top down reform in 2012, that introduced lots of waste and inefficiency into the NHS leading to more cuts. It’s a fragmented NHS.

The Conservatives always make a mess of the NHS because they start with preconceived political ideas and make the NHS suffer the consequences instead of doing what ordinary people do, how can we make it all work together including the causes of ill health.

I couldn’t get a GP appointment at 8am on the phone so I called in. Sorry no appointments. A call was made to the new GP out of hours service.

No spaces. I was suffering badly and concerned it may be something worse. What do you do? Crowded A&E? I went to the Walk in Centre at Accrington Victoria. Wonderful. Run by ELMs. Fantastic.

I have told the CCG that closing the HAC is wrong. They claim budget cuts mean it has to close. The problem is they are an unelected unaccountable body making decisions about our lives.

Not quite unaccountable though. Our GPs are all members of the CCG and they run it but they go into denial mode when asked about their role and their view. If you’re at your GPs in the next few weeks tell them, “please fight to keep the NHS Walk in Centre at Accrington Vic”. Or write to them.

Finally I did the TV, Sunday politics last week, and raised again the importance of connecting by road and rail through the obvious best route East Lancashire (the low Pennines) the ports of Liverpool and Hull. Extending the M65 to the A1 and reconnecting our Lancashire to Yorkshire railway (SELRAP campaign). Labour has promised to undertake this. It’s now up to the Conservatives to match that investment. As I said on the programme, this would be the greatest of Northern Powerhouse projects and elevate many people out of poverty.

If you wish to contact my office please call 01254 382283.