Saturday, September 06, 2008

Making a difference – real “joined up” local politics

This morning I helped out as a volunteer at our local MP, Lyn Brown's, latest “Community development” meeting (a.k.a “Coffee morning”)in the super swish new headquarters for East Thames Housing in Stratford, London, E15.

Lyn holds a series of meetings across her constituency each month and invites local residents to come and meet her to discuss local issues and their concerns. In the past she has held joint meetings with various local agencies such as the Police Safer Neighbourhood teams to discuss anti-social behaviour. Today she had a joint meeting with the local NHS Trust in Newham. The Chief Executive, Melanie Walker, attended together with a team, who did free MOT health checks for every one who turned up (height, weight, blood pressure and blood sugar levels).

As befitting in my position as a senior Party activist I had a suitable vital and important job to do i.e looking after the teas and coffee.

Local Councillors for the ward also helped out and took case work.

The meeting was packed from beginning to end and everyone I spoke to felt it was a really good event. Meeting your community leaders face to face around a table and having the opportunity to question and challenge your local MP, councillors and the boss of your local health services is what local politics should be all about.

Being East Enders, most people had quite a lot to say and didn’t hold back, but the atmosphere was absolutely very constructive and positive. “Trust the people”comrades!

I think that on the whole most people were very appreciative of the improvement in health services in Newham. There are still problems with, for example, GP surgeries who take too long to answer the phone and don’t offer appointments early enough. But people did accept that things were getting better.

Interestingly, many of the complaints were about the relative high cost of using the borough gyms and swimming pools. Residents wanted to become healthier but felt they could not afford it. Isn’t prevention better (and cheaper) than cure?

I came away from this event on a real high. This is “joined up” politics in action.

Maybe next time Lyn could meet residents with the CEOs and staff of the major housing organisations in West Ham?

Just a thought.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had a phone call this week, seeing as your always going to our job fairs, we are holding one on Saturday, come along this time we have employers. Like the fool I've become this is number four, down I go, nobody and I mean nobody turned up except the cripples we went in to an empty room with a bloke taking out photos the MP shaking hands with a director of some bloody charity, down the bottom of the room were a group of tables and people really fighting over who would have the best pitch and the best place to put up signs, it was of course the job brokers fighting over how many cripples they could sign up. I asked the chap on the door where are the employers, he smiled and said how many time have you been to these, I said four times now mate, when will you learn, ah well.

Before I could get out I was offered a New TV, a New DVD player numerous pens and numerous prize draws, the only thing they did not have were jobs or employers.

John Gray said...

Hi Robert
And your point regarding this event?