This week’s take on events from Andy Cowper: Easy sleazy
There can be few more heartbreaking stories of NHS failings than that of Harry Richford, who died aged just seven days old after a botched delivery and resuscitation. It will haunt East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust for years to come but as well as the damage to its reputation it will now cost it significant amounts of money.
The trust faces an unlimited fine after pleading guilty to a charge of failing to provide safe care, and treatment causing harm, to Harry and his mum Sarah. It’s the first time a trust has faced a Care Quality Commission prosecution for breaching fundamental standards, focused around the quality of clinical care rather than issues primarily related to estates. Previous fines have been in the low hundreds of thousands but fines in cases brought by the Health and Safety Executive have been higher.
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Buckland Hospital car park in Dover empty as patients park for free in spaces residents have to pay for
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Updated: 14:39, 24 February 2021
Fee-dodging drivers using a hospital are avoiding an NHS car park and taking up on-street spaces that residents have to pay for.
The designated car park at Buckland Hospital in Dover is often so empty youngsters are using it as a football pitch.
Parking on Coombe Valley Road. It is not known whether these vehicles belong to residents or hospital visitors
But across the road, a section of residents parking bays are full up because hospital users are using them for free.
Leader of Kent County Council urges government to keep schools closed in Thanet, Canterbury, Dover and Folkestone and Hythe
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Updated: 14:33, 03 January 2021
The leader of Kent County Council has called on the Government to keep schools closed in Thanet, Canterbury, Dover and Folkestone and Hythe.
Cllr Roger Gough (Con) wrote to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson yesterday, urging him to allow primary schools to remain shut.
KCC leader Roger Gough takes a Covid test at Sheerness East WMC, Halfway. Picture: John Nurden
He tweeted to say he had supported Kent schools in staying open.
But he added: Yet most schools in #Kent will under government rules have a delayed start; the public health justification for treating 4 Districts (with still high infection rates) differently does not stack up.