Week 11 - Around and about in the Constituency
Party conference season continues with Reform over last weekend and Labour this week. The mood from the Labour event is reported as somewhat mixed, with signs of hope and positivity starting to show. Nothing yet on what the budget will look like in October, we will have to wait and see.
In the meantime, I have been taking the opportunity of Parliament recess to go and visit some of the amazing organisations that we have around the constituency. I’d like to highlight three of them here.
I went to see Volunteering in Health in Teignmouth. I went to their AGM, and spoke briefly on the news from Westminster, but also locally. As a charity, ViH provides services that complement the NHS and social care to support people to continue to live happily, safely and independently.
They operate from Teignmouth hospital and provide a series of services, from the essential help to get patients to and from their appointments to helping people out of hospital by ensuring that they have the home support they need. And all of this on the smallest of budgets, their volunteer team is amazing, and the work that they do is so impressive.
One service that they run is the HOPE course (Help Overcoming Problems Effectively) which enables people to take more control of their own health and wellbeing. The success stories of participants were truly inspiring.
For more information if you need help or would like to volunteer email them on info@volunteeringinhealth.co.uk.
In Newton Abbot I met the team from Citizens Advice. Celebrating the 85th anniversary of Citizens Advice (formerly known as CAB) and awarding long service certificates for some with many years of dedication to helping others.
Citizens advice helps in many areas, mostly with legal issues and dealing with government bureaucracy – particularly the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions). I have been a supporter of their work for a while and they are supported by local Councils. The help that they provide to local residents in sorting out everything from Personal Independence claims (PiP) through to helping people claim pensions credit along with all sorts of housing issues is invaluable.
Inevitably the conversation came around to the Winter Fuel Allowance, and I don’t think that is yet entirely finished. However they also had many questions for me to take back to ask the government directly in Westminster.
For more information if you need help or would like to volunteer please visit www.citizensadviceteignbridge.org.uk
And I met with the chief executive of Rowcroft Hospice Care for a tour around their site and a conversation on the issues facing their service and Hospice care in the UK.
Hospice care isn’t something that most of us think about until we or a loved one needs it. It isn’t part of the NHS, and Rowcroft receives just 14% of its costs from government. The rest comes from donations and fundraising. There is a massive disparity in funding in Devon compared to London where they get some 40% of their costs from government. However the Rowcroft team do a most amazing job, and help people with palliative care through to the end of their lives. Not all of this is on site, they operate a Hospice at Home service and have a busy community team. They helped some 2,500 people and their families last year and I will do everything I can to help them get the level of government funding that they need.
For more information, please visit rowcrofthospice.org.uk