Pay drivers to scrap diesels for clean air
A DESPERATE mum has pleaded with doctors to operate on her son after he had his procedure cancelled for a third time.
Laura Pickering’s son Preston, aged 11, of Stannington, has an unknown condition which affects his central nervous system and was pencilled in for an operation at Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
His condition has left him severely disabled. He is now wheelchair bound and unable to communicate properly. Doctors said they needed to operate to find out more about Preston’s condition and alleviate some of the problems.
But on three occasions, his mother Laura, 30, said doctors told her they couldn’t carry out the procedure because there wasn’t a high dependency unit bed available.
She said: “It’s got to a point where I’m constantly ringing up the hospital asking if there is a bed available for enough time for his operation.”
Sally Shearer, director of nursing and quality at Sheffield Children’s Hospital said: “The safety of patients is our number one priority and we would not go ahead with a procedure if we could not guarantee them the high quality aftercare they need to recover.” OWNERS OF old diesel cars should be able to scrap their vehicles for cash in pollution hotspots, the chairman of an influential Commons committee is expected to tell ministers. According to the
MP Neil Parish will use a House of Commons debate on Wednesday to urge the Government to commit to a targeted scheme to tackle emissions.
He will say that “households should not just be able to trade in multiple diesels for a cash subsidy”, and instead the Government “should particularly consider targeting a scrappage scheme at poorer households or those earning less than 60 per cent of the median UK household income”.
Mr Parish, Conservative chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee, will say: “If the Government earmarked £500m for this scheme, it would take nearly 10 per cent of the five million dirtiest diesels off our roads.”
The newspaper reports that he will say: “Limiting the scheme to these hotspots could potentially take as many as half of these dirtiest diesels out of these pollution hotspots.” It comes before the Government publishes its updated clean air plans later this month. There had been speculation that the plans would include a scrappage scheme aimed at taking older, more polluting diesel cars off the roads.