Predictably, our useless PR department, headed by Mr 'Fizzy' Fitzpatrick, and costing close to £500,000 a year, was impotent in protecting the Council's reputation.
The Dame has for many years recommended closing the PR department down and replacing it with a small, but efficient, external consultancy to handle communications.
In doing so savings of 80% could be achieved with no liability for pensions or redundancy costs.
But back to the core topic.
One disgraceful aspect of care for the elderly was the closure of Thamesbrook orchestrated by the dreadful Stella Baillie, the director responsible for care of the elderly.
The Hornet wrote a piece about Thamesbrook some time back.
It gave the vile Baillie a real roasting over the shabby treatment of the residents of this much loved 'local' home.
You can catch up here LINK
And which Cabinet member is responsible for care of the elderly? Yes, you guessed: the utterly lazy Cllr Weale
The Hornet wrote a piece about Thamesbrook some time back.
LAZY WHEALE |
You can catch up here LINK
And which Cabinet member is responsible for care of the elderly? Yes, you guessed: the utterly lazy Cllr Weale
The miserable Wheale woman strikes again. Puffing and sitting on a mess. But on this occasion she is not solely to blame. The tri Borough fiasco has done its damage and feeble piggy failed to act fast enough to stop the rot. In spite of many prods from the Dame.
ReplyDeleteTime for piggy to shape up and clean up. Out with the Weale bin, out with cracking Mellen, less spending on fripperies like Fitzpatrick and Middle East arts programmes.
More back to basics is what the Borough urgently needs.
I thought the Fitzpatrick outfit had been closed down!
ReplyDeleteThis is a wake up call for the Leader of the Royal Borough and his Cabinet.
ReplyDeleteKensington and Chelsea has been made to blush by public criticism and humiliation. This was entirely avoidable and amounts to neglect and culpable stupidity on an industrial scale.
It's astonishing that the Mail published this. They are sitting on a heap of stuff on the council, if they were to publish just a fraction of the information they have officers and councillors would be out on their ear, SFO would be investigating them and sent to chokey.
DeleteLook forward to the day they release it all!
Some years ago a report appeared stating that RBKC had the worst record in the country in respect of services provided to the dying.
ReplyDeleteHorton Street has always considered resident's funds are far better spent on the Holland Park Opera and the Mayor's limo etc.
Indeed - the ghastly Baillie is implicated. As she was in McDonald, Savva, the poor Ghurkha Major Vickers who died and God knows how many others have suffered in silence. What, services for the dying? The services for the living elderly are abysmally poor as well. All thanks to ghastly Baillie's scheming and pandering to the Council's wishes rather than look after those in need of social help, as she should... she is, believe it or not - dear reader - a registered Social Worker.....
ReplyDeleteIs Baillie still employed by Hornton Street? Perhaps the Dame could tell us........
DeleteMore generally, we should all remember who looked after us when we were little. It is a sad feature of contemporary Western societies that we treat our elderlies as hindrances, and Stella Baillie acts within that structure. We should take example on Mediterranean communities who have the utmost respect for their elders. Time for a change, because one day, we will ALL be old.
ReplyDeleteThis unhealthy despise for the elderly is worrying especially from the BBC and their snowflakey followers. I do not see any old person in the borough any more, they were all forced out.
DeleteThamesbrook.Shut down over spurious claims of legionella.Everyone was moved out and then hey presto - the building has to be demolished to make way for a luxury medical facility with luxury flats, so that foreign visors can access our NHS services in the Borough. Again Councillors seem to be favouring overseas nationals over and above the needs of those they claim to represent. The sad thing is we have heard this time and time again under Piggys'leadership, with lots of noses in the trough!
ReplyDeleteThamesbrook was a crook job. They saw it sat on 'valuable' land made some lame excuse and forced residents out. Everyone should read Simon Jenkins' articcle this week in the Evening Standard excellent piece and names Kensinton & Chelsea twice to be a guilty party.
ReplyDeleteOdd. Somone is living/working at Thamesbrook always cars in the carpark. Once again this adds to the corruption of the Council and councillors.
Remember fellow residents to stop the rot vote them out next year!
Simon Jenkin's article: If we keep on building towers, empty London will be a grim reality
DeleteProperty ownership in a city is less important than the people who live and work in it, and give it crucial life
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/simon-jenkins-if-we-keep-on-building-towers-empty-london-will-be-a-grim-reality-a3512541.html
K&C Councillors do not like to be named and shamed. It even brings the living dead to life.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this venal calamity will spur piggy and his mates into action.
Another calamity was summed up today by Simon Jenkin in his Evening Standard column. K&C Councillors are encouraging and allowing our society to be decimated by the continued construction of Ghost Towers which remain empty and a home for hot foreign money. WAKE UP PIGGY.
No chance. Piggy has got his Deputy Leader, Rock feilding Mellen, to organise the social and ethnic cleansing of North Kensington to sell to overseas buyers.
DeleteStruth, dear readers.. Ethnic cleansing of North Ken? We live in Holland Park, should we be worried and relocate to friendlier places?
ReplyDeleteThe Labour Group did some work on RBKC Home Care for the Budget meeting. Between 2010 and 2017 the numbers of residents receiving Home Care have pretty much halved: from 1,038 to 585 older people, from 192 to 96 people with Physical disability or sensory impairment; from 27 to 10 people with Learning Disabilities; from 138 to 96 people with Mental Health Needs. There is a suggestion that this is because of the number of people using Direct Payments, so they get the funds and find their own carers. But in the same period the Council has UNDERSPENT on Adult Social Care by a total of cc£33m. This isn't 'efficiency savings, but underspends on the budget. Meanwhile they are spouting rubbish about how caring they are by continuing to 'give' care for people with 'Moderate Needs', which hasn't cost them a penny extra. Just think what they could have done to support those failing care homes, with even half the underspends.
ReplyDeletenb for those who don't know this, underspends go into the Council's Capital Reserves for those vanity projects so loved by certain Councillors. Not mentioning any names.
Thank goodness for Cllr EDC. We can always rely on her to tell it as it is.
DeleteThe Tory Cabinet should be deeply ashamed. £300 million in reserves and the aged and infirm of Kensington and Chelsea being treated like United Airline passengers.
What a pity that Labour does not have the strength to knock this lot out.
RBKC Labour under both both Blakeman and Atkinson are nothing but a pathetic joke. Time to get some Councillors with some fight to represent the interests of community elders and the vulnerable.
DeleteThere are many elderly people in Kensington and Chelsea. Check the records of any GP surgery. This group should be a major policy focus in Hornton Street and one of the big budget items.
ReplyDeleteIt is shocking to read what the Mail said. Cllr Paget-Brown and his Cabinet need to raise their game. And a new pair of hands is required to pick up the Social Portfolio. A person who can look at the scene with compassion and intelligence and persuade the Cabinet to fund what is necessary.
The scandal cannot be allowed to continue.
Indeed so .. I assume you are talking about the ghastly Ms Baillie who has received very bad press here... Taking into consideration that she is a Social Worker, mentioned above, Ms Jane Addams the founder of the Social Workers movement ought to be turning in her grave on finding out that this amoral person has infiltrated the ranks of such a noble profession....
ReplyDeleteThe buck stops with the Leader, Cllr Paget-Brown. He needs to make changes in his team and find a consensus in Cabinet for what acceptable standards of service are and a timetable to achieve them.
DeleteI agree Retired Chief Executive. It's all too easy to target officers. But who employed them, who instructs them and who is keeping them there?
ReplyDeleteIf the Cabinet members aren't in charge they damn well should be. That's what they were elected for.