Yesterday afternoon I attended The Salford Garden Party at the Civic Centre in Swinton. This annual event is designed to promote, amongst other things, the services Salford City Council has to offer it’s residents. As someone interested in local politics, the highlight of the Garden Party is “The Big Ask”, where ordinary people like you and me have the opportunity to question our city’s councillors and leaders on, well, pretty much anything we like.

Last year I attended and queried Councillor Merry on my pet hate of potholes, but my intention was simply to listen this year – since I’m hoping in the not too distant future, I’ll be the one answering the questions.

While this year’s questions covered a wide range of topics, all night I’ve been struggling with Derek Antrobus’ answer to one posed regarding the council’s decision to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on the Christmas Ice Rink. When asked, Councillor Antrobus defended the near-£200,000 spend on a month’s worth of subsidised ice-skating by stating it provided youngsters something to do and was a healthy activity.

Yet the Council had the opportunity to continue to fund free swimming beyond 29^th August for under-17s at an annual cost to the city of almost £200,000 (Since free swimming was introduced in Salford there were over 150,000 visits to pools by young people. The government grant for free swimming for 2009/10 was £196,287 – source Salford Star). In fact, the free swimming government grant ended on 31^st July and Salford Council decided to fund it for a further month (until the end of the summer holidays), so they clearly understood the long term value of free swimming for young people.

So, Councillor Antrobus, your argument for supporting the Ice Rink for a few weeks of “exercise and something to do” doesn’t quite stack up when the same money could have been spent providing free swimming for an entire year for those same youngsters. Perhaps the flashy ice rink with it’s stays-on-all-day-and-all-night lighting ticks more marketing check-boxes than free swimming for non-voters?

Nothing to do with politics, but since no mainstream media could find the space to point this out, I thought I write a short blog post about my Home Office colleague David Smith and 10 of his friends who walked 30 miles from Chester to Hale in aid of The Christie.

They started the walk at some ungodly hour of Saturday morning (10th April 2010) and most of them had made it to Hale by mid-afternoon.

Even more astounding was that Christian, who is a patient himself at The Christie, successfully completed the walk.

I know the team are still suffering with their various ‘foot-related’ injuries, but I’m sure these will heal quickly and it must feel great to have raised £7,775 online + another £1,000 or so via the Gift Aid scheme.

There’s still a pot of off-line donations in the office to add to the total, so I’m confident that the final figure will be well over the £9,000 mark.

The ‘walkees’ were: Andrew Valentine,Mark Valentine,Julian Valentine,Adam Valentine,Christian Valentine,Simon Mudd,Mark Peters,Matt Roberts,Paul Gozem, Gareth Shaw and David Smith.

It’s not too late to donate (even though the walk has already been completed), you can donate on-line here: http://www.justgiving.com/chester-hale-walk

Back in March of this year I wrote the first of five blog posts about The Christie Hospital and my involvement with this brilliant research and treatment centre in Withington, South Manchester. I have been a patient for many years (mostly on an outpatient-only basis) and visit the hospital once a year for a check-up.

I am fortunate in that  (1) I do not have cancer and (2) I have a car so do not have to rely on public transport to travel from my home in Langworthy, Salford to Withington for my appointments. That said, it’s still a fair distance and it’s hardly a short journey by car – I can only imagine how difficult it must be for those in any kind of pain to have no choice but to travel the distance by public transport. I shudder to think what a taxi fare from Salford to Withington and back would be.

That’s why I am wholeheartedly supporting The Salford Advertiser’s £250,000 Christie Challenge with the aim of raising £250,000 towards a new £17 million satellite radiotherapy centre at Salford Royal.

The unit will be staffed by Christie cancer experts who will provide radiotherapy treatment to 1,200 people every year who would otherwise have to travel to The Christie from Salford and surrounding areas.

Building work is due to begin at the end of 2009, and they are hoping to open its doors to the first patients in 2011. The centre will have two radiotherapy machines which will be used to give radiotherapy treatment to 70 patients every day.

One of the machines will cost £1.3 million; the other machine will be able to deliver Stereotactic radiosurgery, a highly specialised treatment for conditions such as brain tumours. This machine will cost £2.5 million, and is one of only a handful in the country. Currently Christie patients have to travel to Sheffield to receive this treatment.

As The Advertiser points out The Christie relies on fundraising and donations to deliver their fantastic service and that’s why I’m repeating the appeal from Advertiser Editor Simon Keegan and calling on everyone to back the campaign and donate to the fund.

Donating is really easy, you can call 0161 446 3988 (be sure to mention you are donating in response to the Salford Advertiser appeal) or send a cheque to: Salford Advertiser, Appeals office, The Christie, Wilmslow Road, Manchester M20 4BX. Alternatively, you can pop any spare coins you might have into the collection buckets at The Christie Hospital (main entrance) or in any of the collection tins found dotted around chemists, post offices, newsagents etc.

Finally, by far the easiest way to donate is to do so online at: http://www.christies.org/salford

So come on Salford – dig deep and let’s equip our city with a world-class treatment centre. Hopefully none of us will ever need it, but just imagine how life could be different for those that do.

My previous blog posts about The Christie can be read here, here, here and here.

I admit to being baffled by recent correspondence from both my MP, Hazel Blears and The HM Treasury. Today I finally received replies to queries I raised back in MARCH, in relation to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme decision to deny The Christie Hospital a refund of their £6.5m of charity money lost when two Icelandic banks failed.

Those of you in the know, will probably be aware that while the Financial Services Authority (FSA) denied The Christie a refund from the scheme, they subsequently received their money back via NHS sources. The irony of the timing of these two letters landing on my doorstep today is not lost on me.

My initial letter to Hazel Blears asked for her to support a judicial review into the FSA’s decision – since it not only affected The Christie, but also many other charities across the country. Sadly, the MP for Salford chose not to voice her public support for a judicial review, but instead forwarded my appeal on to the HM Treasury. A case of “passing the buck”, I feel.

While The Christie has received it’s charity cash back, the response from HM Treasury does not bode well for other charities or indeed any other non-profit making bodies such as police authorities, councils or universities, many of which have been affected in a similar way to Christies. At the last count 48 charities had lost £200m in the Icelandic banking collapse, with compensation likely to be less than 20% (if any).

These other non-profit making bodies do not have some mysterious NHS fund to save their lost cash, yet the government seems perfectly happy to see critical services suffer because “the claimant is ineligible for compensation” and “This could lead to these other bodies having a legitimate expectation that they too would be compensated.” Damn right it would.

Two parts of this concern me.

(A) The government seems perfectly willing to spend millions to support the banks that (partly) caused the banking collapse which ultimately led to the loss of donated money, but refuses to help the victims.

(B) Hazel Blears seems to have no opinion on the matter (her handwritten note attached to my “standard reply” letter offers apologies for the delay in getting a response from her government, but no apology for the decision from her government).

Or maybe she agrees with HM Treasury that if a bank fails and a charity loses it’s money, that is acceptable?

Hazel signs off her handwritten note saying that she is pleased Christie has got it’s funds restored. So am I. But I wonder if another banking collapse in the future could see The Christie and other charities lose their money all over again. It could happen.

I support Liberal Democrat MPs John Leach and Mark Hunter (who brought the matter to the government’s attention in the House of Commons) in their continuing campaign to return ALL charitable money lost in the banking collapse.

It’s just a shame Hazel Blears doesn’t seem to care about (or have an opinion on) the huge efforts charities across the country go to in raising much-needed funds.

I have just heard the sad news that Colin Hendry’s wife, Denise, has died after a battle with a serious infection. Denise has suffered terribly since her botched cosmetic surgery operation in a private hospital in 2002. Denise  had been seriously ill in Salford Royal Hospital for 11 weeks, and died on Friday surrounded by her family.

Although I have never met Denise, I first met former Scottish football captain Colin, shortly after his wife’s first operation and was saddened to hear how it had affected their family life. Colin had no choice but to give up his playing and then subsequent managerial career, to look after Denise and their young family.

Although Denise won a substantial damages claim in late 2006, no amount of money was able to make up for the long term damage that had been done, and unfortunately she never really recovered from the after-affects.

I’m aware that Denise subsequently campaigned about the dangers of cosmetic surgery, urging people to check their surgeon’s credentials before going under the knife.

My thoughts are with Colin and his family at this difficult time.

I’m perhaps a week late in reporting the happy news that The Christie, formerly known as The Christie Hospital in Withington (Manchester) has been told by the government that the NHS will pay back the £6.5m lost in the Icelandic banking collapse.

Without the support of 100,000 people who signed The Manchester Evening News petition I highlighted here last month, it is doubtful The Christie would have been successful. The return of the money now means that some important projects that could have been scrapped, can now go ahead – including a remote unit at Salford Royal Hospital.

The Christie is a hospital I have a keen interest in, not merely because I visit it every year for my annual check-up – for a condition that is non-cancer related. You see, not many people know that as well as being a world-renowned cancer research centre, The Christie also specialises in other cutting edge fields, such as Endocrinology (the department I visit).

The staff at The Christie are some of the most hard-working and caring individuals I know, staffed with experts from around the world all working in a modern, clean and efficient hospital. A tribute to the NHS.

At my last visit a few weeks ago, I was pleased to see further development of the hospital taking shape. A new wing is being built and a long overdue multi-storey car park should be ready well before my next visit in 2010.

Lastly, I would just like to thank The Manchester Evening News for it’s support and importantly highlighting the campaign and petition to return the lost charity money – their campaign, which saw almost universal cross-party political support was instrumental in securing the deal with the government to re-imburse the £6.5m

The Christie still needs your regular donations and these can now be done on-line here, as well as in person at the hospital. Personally, I get a little satisfaction dropping the money in the big red bucket in the main reception – but for those that can’t get to Withington, please donate something if you can.

For the second time this week I’ve woken up feeling ever so slightly queasy – probably something I ate. So it was appropriate that I would read, whilst browsing The Times Online, a letter written to the editor.

Sir, “Quantitative easing” is far too cumbersome a phrase. I suggest that we truncate the phrase into a more manageable term: “Queasing”. Much easier to pronounce and carries with it the slightly queasy feeling that one naturally feels when trying to save the economy from imminent collapse.

Carl Maxim

Southsea, Hants

Somehow that seems appropriate, considering how crappy I am feeling today.

It was with some dismay that I read in the Manchester Evening News that Christie’s Hospital in Manchester has lost it’s appeal to recover the £6.5m that was lost in the Icelandic banking crash. Sadly, the hospital’s attempt to claim the charity money back through the Financial Compensation Scheme has been unsuccessful, as their claim was rejected. It seems the claim was rejected on the basis that the scheme only protects individuals and small companies.

As an outpatient of Christie’s Hospital for many years, I am today backing the Manchester Evening News’ campaign to help Christies get back their donated money and I call on anyone and everyone who reads this to do the same.

Christies made no mistakes in depositing the donations in two Icelandic banks, as they both had the highest safety ratings and offered the best interest rates at the time. Hospital managers were simply investing the money wisely, with the best possible return.

Now Christies are launching a legal challenge to overturn the FCS decision and they have received the full backing of Lib Dem John Leech, MP for Withington who said “I am appalled by the decision of the FSCS to reject The Christie’s claim. This is money that has been raised by the public to help the hospital in its efforts to fight cancer, and it has been lost through no fault of the hospital whose bosses were acting on the best possible advice at the time of its investment. I have spoken to hospital bosses and will be fully supporting them in their attempts to secure a judicial review of the case. The Christie is a world leader in cancer care and the FSCS heartless decision must be reversed.”

I have written to my local MP, Hazel Blears, asking her to support a judicial review – with the ultimate goal of overturning this terrible decision. I await her reply with bated breath.

EDIT: In the meantime, I urge everyone to sign the M.E.N.’s online petition at Number 10, located at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/TheChristie/. You can also read the full story here, as reported by the paper.

Should you wish to make a donation to Christies (I do every year), you can now do it online at http://www.christies.org/donations/default.aspx