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George Plumptre with Mary Berry at the NGS stand, Chelsea, 2019
Credit: Andrew Crowlet
There’s no heart-warming tale from George Plumptre’s boyhood about how he grew to love gardens from helping his mother plant lupins in the herbaceous borders of Goodnestone Park or from watching a broad bean sprout in a bottle.
The chief executive of the National Garden Scheme struggles to remember a single moment of horticultural awakening. No. He and his four brothers were too busy rampaging through the neglected thickets of their family estate in Kent, climbing the ancient cedar of Lebanon or roller-skating along the top floor of the Palladian country house to pay much attention to their mother’s acclaimed garden restoration.
| UPDATED: 13:38, Fri, Mar 5, 2021
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The contact tracing service has been almost universally panned since it was first launched in May 2020. Dogged by criticism from all sides, it has now emerged the Test and Trace system failed to or barely used check-in data provided by the hospitality industry when pubs, restaurants and the like were still open.
Some hospices have set up entire coronavirus wards within their buildings as more patients with Covid-19 are discharged to relieve pressure on the NHS.
At Ashgate Hospice in Chesterfield, two of their inpatient wings are now designated solely for coronavirus patients discharged from the Chesterfield Royal Hospital, which reported earlier this month that all 16 of its ICU beds were full.
The hospice s Chief Executive Barbara-Anne Walker told us she is proud of the work they do relieving pressure on the health system, but said they need more government funding to carry on their work. The money we get from the NHS doesn t cover our costs under normal circumstances, and the additional money [from the government] is really very welcome but is only for just now and it doesn t cover all of our costs, Ms Walker said.