Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Thursday 22 June 2023

Willesden Neighbourhood Health and Wellbeing Workshop - June 29th from 1pm at Ashford Place Community Centre


 We would like to hear from you!

 

Join us for an interactive afternoon discussing care, wellbeing and health provision in Willesden Green, Cricklewood & Mapesbury, and Dollis Hill. This workshop is a key opportunity to share your thoughts and experiences on the current state of services in our neighbourhood, and work collaboratively to address and prevent health inequalities.

 

The event will take place on Thursday, June 29th, 2023 from 1 PM at Ashford Place Community Centre, 60 Ashford Road, London, NW2 6TU. We will start the event with half an hour of lunch and networking before beginning our discussions.

 

During the workshop we want to hear from you on a range of topics including the challenges faced by children, young people and their families today, what you want to see from the future of health and care in the Willesden neighbourhood, and potential solutions to improve the quality of wellbeing, health and care in our community.

 

This is a great opportunity to have your voice heard and contribute to the ongoing conversation about wellbeing, health and care in the Willesden neighbourhood. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

TICKETS

Wednesday 17 February 2021

Grants available to Brent communities & organisations wanting to tackle health inequalities

 From Brent Council

Grants from £1,000 to £25,000 are being made available to individuals and organisations with innovative ideas and solutions to tackle the impact of COVID-19 and health inequalities.

The Brent Health Matters Programme – a joined up approach from Brent Council, NHS partners and the community to tackle health inequalities has launched its Community Grants Scheme this week.

Health inequalities are avoidable, unfair and systematic differences in health between different people. The pandemic has not only exposed long-standing health inequalities, but in many cases made them worse.

Cllr Neil Nerva, Brent’s Cabinet Member for Public Health, Culture and Leisure, said:

The fund is now open to submissions from individuals and organisations that have ideas and solutions to reduce the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 in the short term, and more broadly tackle health inequality issues in the longer term.

An individual can bid for up to £1,000, with a higher threshold of £2,000, whereas an organisation can look to secure up to £15,000 in funding, with a higher threshold of £25,000. The higher threshold would require the bidder to demonstrate how they will deliver significant impact in a single ward or impact across multiple wards.

The launch of the grants will complement other elements of the Brent Health Matters programme that have already led to some real examples of acting on feedback from the community. This includes the launch of a health and wellbeing telephone advice line that has been launched as a pilot for the whole of the borough through to April, with the potential for it to be extended.

Cllr Nerva added: 

Any Brent resident can now speak to locally based NHS staff to ask any non-clinical questions about health and social care. They will be helped with signposting to relevant support and assisted to access the right services. Residents can also receive advice on how to better manage their health conditions.

The Advice Line is available on 020 3114 7185, 10am to 3pm, Monday to Friday.

To find out more, including how to apply for a Community Grant, go to www.brent.gov.uk/brenthealthmatters

Monday 1 February 2021

Brent announces Community Champions to tackle health inequalities

 


 

 A borough-wide network of community champions to tackle health inequalities in Brent has been announced by the council.

 

The Brent Health Matters programme aims to address health inequalities – which are avoidable, unfair and systematic differences in health between different people. The pandemic has not only exposed health inequalities, but in many cases made them worse.

 

The first wave of coronavirus arrived early in Brent and the borough was hit hard. The virus particularly affected deprived areas with a high proportion of BAME residents, with Church End and Alperton seeing the highest numbers of cases and deaths in the whole of London.

Work has already begun in Church End and Alperton with volunteers taken on as Community Champions to help connect local people with services that can improve their health and also to understand better what help and support people need. (See the case studies below for examples)

 

Cllr Neil Nerva, Brent’s Cabinet Member for Public Health, Culture and Leisure, said:

 

The Brent Health Matters programme is a joined up approach from Brent Council, NHS partners and the community to tackle health inequalities.

 

Community Champions sit at the heart of the programme – helping us understand the local needs and perspectives of these communities. We’ve already seen some great examples of acting on feedback from the community, including the launch of a health and wellbeing telephone advice line, myth busting communications, PPE supplies and events such as our webinars about the COVID vaccine.

 

Recently, Brent Council successfully bid for a share of Community Champions funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Brent received the highest share of all the 60 councils that were allocated funding across the country, with an award of £733,333.

 

Cllr Nerva explained: 

With the additional funding we will be able to rollout the programme from two wards to the whole of the borough.

This will see us recruit and train up to 40 paid Health Educators and launch a grants programme for community groups and individuals to develop new and innovative ways of addressing health inequalities.

 

We will also be able to develop a rolling programme of mental health and wellbeing awareness training and conduct a series of outreach days in our communities.

Monday 7 September 2020

Brent Cabinet discusses vital report on implementing plans to tackle Black inequality in Brent

At 10am today the Brent Cabinet has a very important item on the Brent Black Community Action Plan.  It constitutes 10 detailed work streams on all aspect of the Council's work: 
1.    Early intervention: children, young people and families 
2.   Enabling and strengthening community leadership through capacity building  
3.   Developing community spaces – run and managed by local communities 
4.   Supporting the black community and voluntary sector - grant funding and procurement 
5.   Support for employment and enterprise 
6.   Accountability and engagement 
7.   Internal review of processes within the Council  
8.   Homes and homelessness 
9.   Tackling health inequalitieS
10. Embedding equality and diversity within the council workforce.
 Unfortunately there is a possibility that most publicity will be given to a parallel plan to review the names of  places in Brent associated with people involved in the slave trade, including Gladstone Park.  Although symbolically important and perhaps an 'easy win' the resulting furore may drown out the vital and more difficult work involved in tackling current inequalities in education, work, health and housing to name just some of the work streams.  As a veteran of the anti-racist campaigns in education in the 1970s I remember how the work we were undertaking in schools was derailed by rows about whether 'Baa, baa black sheep' should be banned. Slave trade names are important but have to be kept in perspective.

As an example of the detailed work this is Workstream 1 - Early Intervention: children, young people and families:


1.Working with schools to influence school curricula to:
·      support young black boys with developing self-esteem, self-worth and confidence in the classroom, and through coaching and mentoring in schools
·      ensure positive Black History is being taught.

School Effectiveness officers will continue to work with schools to encourage the teaching of black history. Good practice examples in Brent include schools, which have been awarded the United Nations ‘Rights Respecting Schools Award’, reducing inequality and promoting inclusive societies.

Officers will ensure schools maintain a focus on the progress of priority groups & will continue to support the ‘Raising Achievement of boys of Black Caribbean heritage’ project, building on the success in improving outcomes in Year 1/2 of the project.

2.Recruitment drive for black school governors. This includes encouraging schools and Governor training to include unconscious bias and anti-racism training. Recruitment processes for school governors are ongoing. A recent focused campaign resulted in 25% of recruited governors identifying as being Black/Black British. The governor training offer will be developed to include unconscious bias and anti-racism training.

3.Creating an assured way of life for young black people by enabling them to fulfil their ambitions and aspirations relating to education and work through:

  • enabling young people to explore and express their aspirations, which will include making them aware of opportunities available to them. This could also include confidence-building and making them feel ‘accepted’ and that
  • they do not have to work twice as hard as their non-black peers to achieve the same levels of positive outcomes for themselves
  • supporting parents with their own aspirations and to understand the aspirations of their families and children, and how they can enable their children to thrive
  • institutions, including FE colleges, reviewing their support to ensure it is enabling young black people to discover and achieve their aspirations and removing structural racism and unconscious bias and barriers.

Looking at the pinch points in a young person’s life (birth, starting school, transitioning from primary to secondary school, selecting GCSE subjects and beyond) we need to look at ensuring:

  •  that the institutions and individuals who are influencers in a young person’s life at various stages possess the cultural competence to understand and respond to the context, pressures and barriers young black people can encounter at every critical stage in their lives. Training will be essential.
  • young people are enabled and given the ability to prepare for and handle situations. This includes developing personal resilience skills and creating spaces to have difficult conversations, possibly in school. These conversations could be trauma felt or experienced, directly or indirectly
  • that institutions deploy trauma training for professionals working with young people to support them with trauma and other issues faced
  • space and opportunity for young people to act as leaders and influencers
  • opportunities for young people to learn about black history which can enable self-worth and aspirations to grow
  • opportunities to celebrate achievements, for example, through an annual Youth Pride of Brent Awards evening hosted by the Council.

Actions in this section will align with actions in work stream 5 regarding support for employment and enterprise. Parents will be supported to access early years entitlements and the 30 hours free childcare offer through the Progress for All project.

Family Wellbeing Centres will provide parents and carers of 0-18 year olds with access to support services and programmes to develop their confidence and life skills.

Trauma-informed practice training will continue to be provided for professionals working with young people. Schools and colleges will be supported to access training in areas of cultural competence, unconscious bias and anti-racism.

Working with YBF and the Beckmead Trust, integrated youth activities will be provided around the new Alternative Provision school at the Roundwood Centre from January 2021. Youth engagement through a series of podcasts exploring issues and concerns for young people.

With The Beat London, the council recently commissioned a special 

  • ‘Time to Talk Covid-19’, phone-in to discuss why the BAME community is disproportionately affected by Covid-19
  •  Brent Youth Parliament gives young people who may feel marginalised the opportunity to have a voice.


Alll the work streams can be accessed by following these LINKS

Wednesday 18 March 2020

The powers that the Government are seeking in the Coronavirus Bill

These are the provisions in the Coronavirus Bill that the Government are proposing. They are wide-ranging, some sensible and others which contain risks.

The UK government’s coronavirus action plan, published on 3 March, set out measures to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak that are reasonable, proportionate and based on the latest scientific evidence. Specifically, it detailed:
  • what we know about the virus and the disease it causes
  • how we have planned for an infectious disease outbreak
  • what we are planning to do next, depending on the course the coronavirus outbreak takes
  • the role the public can play in supporting this response, now and in the future
The plan also includes information on the government’s 4-stage strategy: contain, delay, research, mitigate. It sets out advice for how the public should respond in each stage, including what to expect as the outbreak advances.

It also envisaged that changes to legislation might be necessary in order to give public bodies across the UK the tools and powers they need to carry out an effective response to this emergency. This paper sets out, subject to final approvals, the elements of the bill and the reasons why they are needed.

The development of an effective response to the epidemic requires a number of actions. Some of these involve the use of tools and powers that are set out in statute. The governments of the UK therefore resolved to review and where necessary amend the legislation, to ensure that the UK’s response is consistent and effective.

Some of the proposed changes therefore deal with easing the burden on frontline NHS and adult social care staff, some help staff by enabling them to work without financial penalty, and some support people and communities in taking care of themselves, their families and loved ones, and their wider community.

The legislation will be time-limited – for 2 years – and not all of these measures will come into force immediately. The bill allows the 4 UK governments to switch on these new powers when they are needed, and, crucially, to switch them off again once they are no longer necessary, based on the advice of Chief Medical Officers of the 4 nations.

The measures in the coronavirus bill are temporary, proportionate to the threat we face, will only be used when strictly necessary and be in place for as long as required to respond to the situation.

We have worked closely with the devolved administrations to develop an effective package of measures to support frontline staff and individuals involved in this vital national response.

Contents of the bill

The bill enables action in 5 key areas:
  1. increasing the available health and social care workforce – for example, by removing barriers to allow recently retired NHS staff and social workers to return to work (and in Scotland, in addition to retired people, allowing those who are on a career break or are social worker students to become temporary social workers)
  2. easing the burden on frontline staff – by reducing the number of administrative tasks they have to perform, enabling local authorities to prioritise care for people with the most pressing needs, allowing key workers to perform more tasks remotely and with less paperwork, and taking the power to suspend individual port operations
  3. containing and slowing the virus – by reducing unnecessary social contacts, for example through powers over events and gatherings, and strengthening the quarantine powers of police and immigration officers
  4. managing the deceased with respect and dignity – by enabling the death management system to deal with increased demand for its services
  5. supporting people – by allowing them to claim Statutory Sick Pay from day one, and by supporting the food industry to maintain supplies
The proposals set out in the bill will significantly enhance the ability of public bodies across the UK to provide an effective response to tackle this epidemic. We are therefore aiming for it to reach the statute book and begin to take effect from the end of this month. However, the provisions relating to Statutory Sick Pay are intended to have retrospective effect to 13 March.

Increasing the available health and social care workforce

Although we are implementing measures to save lives through delaying and flattening the peak of the epidemic, it is clear that the next few months will present a significant level of challenge for the NHS and anyone working in caring professions. As in all sectors, there will be pressures from increased staff absence, if staff are unwell or self-isolating with their households.

In addition to this, there will be increased numbers of people becoming ill with COVID-19 and some of these people will require medical treatment or need to be admitted to hospital. These additional patient volumes will place pressure on our NHS. To ensure the best possible level of care is provided to those most in need, we may need to take measures to increase the available health and social care workforce and reduce the number of admin tasks they have to perform so they have more time to spend with patients.

To support this, the bill seeks to:
  • enable regulators to emergency register suitable people as regulated healthcare professionals, such as nurses, midwives or paramedics. This might include (but will not be limited to) recently retired professionals and students who are near the end of their training. Registered staff can then be used appropriately, with decisions made on a local basis, to increase the available health and social care workforce and enable essential health and care services to function during the height of the epidemic
  • enable regulators to temporarily add social workers to their registers who may have recently left the profession. This will ensure vital continuity of care for vulnerable children and adults
  • enable employees and workers to take Emergency Volunteer Leave in blocks of 2, 3 or 4 weeks’ statutory unpaid leave and establish a UK-wide compensation fund to compensate for loss of earnings and expenses incurred at a flat rate for those who volunteer through an appropriate authority. This will ensure that volunteers do not suffer financial disadvantage as a result of performing a public good. Volunteers play a critical role in the delivery of health and social care services and are particularly important in caring for the most vulnerable in our society, such as the elderly, those with multiple long-term conditions or those suffering from mental ill-health
  • provide indemnity for clinical negligence liabilities arising from NHS activities carried out for the purposes of dealing with, or because of, the coronavirus outbreak, where there is no existing indemnity arrangement in place. This will ensure that those providing healthcare service activity across the UK are legally protected for the work they are required to undertake as part of the COVID-19 response. This is in line with and will complement existing arrangements
  • suspend the rule that currently prevents some NHS staff who return to work after retirement from working more than 16 hours per week, along with rules on abatements and drawn-down of NHS pensions that apply to certain retirees who return to work. This will allow skilled and experienced staff who have recently retired from the NHS to return to work, and also allow retired staff who have already returned to work to increase their commitments if required, without having their pension benefits suspended

Easing the burden on frontline staff, both within the NHS and beyond

In the NHS and in other sectors who undertake activities that are vital to keeping the country running safely and securely, we may also face particular increased pressures as a result of staff absence or increased work volumes. This could include those caring for children or in education, protecting our borders, detaining and treating people under the Mental Health Act, supporting local authorities and ensuring national security. By reducing the number of admin tasks they have to perform, allowing key workers to perform more tasks remotely and with less paperwork, we will enable these crucial services to continue to operate effectively during periods of reduced staffing.

To support this the bill seeks to:
  • enable existing mental health legislation powers to detain and treat patients who need urgent treatment for a mental health disorder and are a risk to themselves or others, to be implemented using just one doctor’s opinion (rather than the current 2). This will ensure that those who were a risk to themselves or others would still get the treatment they need, when fewer doctors are available to undertake this function
  • temporarily allow extension or removal of time limits in mental health legislation to allow for greater flexibility where services are less able to respond. These temporary changes would be brought in only in the instance that staff numbers were severely adversely affected during the pandemic period and provide some flexibility to help support the continued safe running of services under the Mental Health Act
  • allow NHS providers to delay undertaking the assessment process for NHS continuing healthcare for individuals being discharged from hospital until after the emergency period has ended
  • make changes to the Care Act 2014 in England and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 to enable local authorities to prioritise the services they offer in order to ensure the most urgent and serious care needs are met, even if this means not meeting everyone’s assessed needs in full or delaying some assessments. During a pandemic, a lot of people who work in health and social care could be off sick or may need to care for loved ones. This could mean that local authorities, which are responsible for social care, may not be able to do all the things they are usually required to do
Local authorities will still be expected to do as much as they can to comply with their duties to meet needs during this period and these amendments would not remove the duty of care they have towards an individual’s risk of serious neglect or harm.

These powers would only be used if demand pressures and workforce illness during the pandemic meant that local authorities were at imminent risk of failing to fulfil their duties and only last the duration of the emergency. It would ensure that local authorities will continue to be able to deliver the best possible care services during the peak and to protect the lives of the most vulnerable members of society.
  • temporarily relax local authorities’ duties in relation to their duties to conduct a needs assessment and prepare an adult carer support plan/young care statement under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 and the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 to enable them to prioritise people with the greatest needs
  • provide powers to require educational institutions or childcare providers to stay open or relax some requirements around education legislation in order to help these institutions run effectively during the event of an emergency. This could include reducing teacher ratios, adapting school meal standards and relaxing provisions for those with special educational needs. This will ensure that children, young people and those who work with them remain safe, while minimising disruption to everyday life and progression to further and higher education or employment by ensuring schools have the flexibility and support they need to respond pragmatically to the changing situation
  • enable the Home Secretary to request that port and airport operators temporarily close and suspend operations if Border Force staff shortages result in a real and significant threat to the UK’s border security. This is to ensure the UK can maintain adequate border security throughout the pandemic and protect the public from the threat of criminality or importation of prohibited items that could result from an inadequately controlled border. This would only be used in extremis, where necessary and proportionate, and any direction will be kept to the minimum period necessary to maintain the security of the UK border
  • expand availability of video and audio link in court proceedings. This would include magistrates’ court hearings taking place by phone or by video, should an individual appeal restriction of movement due to quarantine measures. This will ensure that an appeal takes place but will not require a person to break quarantine in order to attend in person. It will also enable the expansion of the availability of video and audio link in various criminal proceedings, including full video and audio hearings in certain circumstances, and public participation in relation to these and other court and tribunal proceedings conducted by audio and video. The measures will enable a wider range of proceedings to be carried out by video, so that courts can continue to function and remain open to the public, without the need for participants to attend in person. This will give judges more options for avoiding adjournments and keeping business moving through the courts to help reduce delays in the administration of justice and alleviate the impact on families, victims, witnesses and defendants
  • ensure that the Treasury can transact its business at all times, by making it possible for a single commissioner or a single Treasury minister to sign instruments and act on behalf of the commissioners, during a COVID-19 emergency period. Under current rules, where any instrument or act is required to be signed by the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury, it must be signed by 2 or more of the commissioners. This change will ensure that the Treasury can transact its business at all times during a COVID-19 emergency period, should commissioners be unable to fulfil their duty
  • allow temporary judicial commissioners (JCs) to be appointed at the request of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, in the event that there are insufficient JCs available to operate the system under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. This is the one of the critical pieces of domestic legislation for national security. It creates the statutory basis for the use of the investigatory powers by the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, using warrants issued under the act. These warrants provide the agencies with the capability they need to protect national security and investigate and prevent serious crime.

    The Home Secretary, again at the request of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, will also be allowed to vary the time allowed for urgent warrants to be reviewed by a JC and how long they can last before they need to be reviewed. The maximum time allowed for a review will be increased to a maximum of 12 days (up from the current 3 days). Maintaining national security capabilities at a time of potential widespread upheaval is critical and it is necessary to ensure that the powers to vary specific aspects of the regime are available to the government should they be deemed necessary, for example if there are fewer JCs available than usual.

Delaying and slowing the virus

The government’s objective is to delay and flatten the peak of the epidemic by bringing forward the right measures at the right time, so that we minimise suffering and save lives. To slow the virus, we will need people to reduce unnecessary social contacts, which, for periods of time, may mean preventing gatherings of people, postponing electoral events over the course of the year or closing schools, further or high education premises or childcare providers. This will help mitigate the risk to public health arising from such mass gatherings.

This will happen only where necessary, to help minimise disruption to everyday life and progression of children and young people to further and higher education or employment. The measures would only be put in place for the period of time required to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To support this, the bill seeks to:
  • enable the government to restrict or prohibit events and gatherings during the pandemic in any place, vehicle, train, vessel or aircraft, any movable structure and any offshore installation and, where necessary, to close premises
  • provide a temporary power to close educational establishments or childcare providers
  • postpone the local, mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections that were due to take place in England in May this year until May 2021. Provision will also be made to postpone other electoral events over the course of the year (such as by-elections)
It’s also important that all UK countries have equivalent legal measures in place to delay or prevent further transmission of the virus, to ensure consistency across the whole UK. For example, removing a current restriction in how Scottish territorial Health Boards can deliver vaccination programmes would mean that, when a vaccine becomes available, it can reach as many people as possible. To support this, the bill seeks to:
  • enable the departments of health in Northern Ireland and Scotland to make regulations for additional measures to be introduced to help them delay or prevent further transmission of COVID-19. Equivalent powers already exist in England and Wales and these provisions would bring them in line with the rest of the UK
  • remove a restriction in how Scottish territorial Health Boards can deliver vaccination programmes so a wider range of healthcare professionals in Scotland would be able to administer a vaccine.
Public support and compliance is crucial and we are grateful for the flexibility people have shown, but we need to ensure police and immigration officers have the authority to enforce these measures where necessary. Therefore, the bill will enable the police and immigration officers to detain a person, for a limited period, who is, or may be, infectious and to take them to a suitable place to enable screening and assessment.

Managing the deceased with respect and dignity

The steps the government is taking to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic will save lives. However, sadly, as has already been seen, people will lose loved ones as a result of this disease. We want to ensure the deceased are treated with the utmost respect and dignity and that the current procedures in relation to death and still-birth registration and management are modified to enable this and to protect public health. This will take account of the fact that families who have lost a loved one may be self-isolating, and that there may be reduced capacity to register and manage deaths as a result of pandemic-related sickness absence.
The bill intends to make changes to:
  • mean a coroner is only to be notified where a doctor believes there is no medical practitioner who may sign the death certificate, or that they are not available within a reasonable time of the death
  • introduce powers to enable the provisions under the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 relating to the collection of ashes to be suspended and replaced with a duty to retain until the suspension is lifted, except where family wishes are known. Also, suspend an offence in section 49 of the 2016 Act, allowing any relative of the deceased to complete the cremation application form, regardless of the required hierarchy set out by section 65 of the 2016 Act
  • expand the list of people who can register a death to include funeral directors acting on behalf of the family
  • enable electronic transmission of documents that currently have to be physically presented in order to certify the registration of a death
  • remove the need for a second confirmatory medical certificate in order for a cremation to take place
  • remove the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 requirement that any inquest into a COVID-19 death must be held with a jury. Other notifiable diseases will still require an inquest with a jury
  • suspend the referral of certificates to the Death Certification Review Service (DCRS) for review in Scotland under the Certification of Death (Scotland) Act 2011. The timing of the suspension to be at the discretion of Scottish ministers
If the scientific advice indicates that the number of people who might die from COVID-19 is likely to significantly exceed the capacity locally to manage the deceased and other contingency measures have been deployed, local government will have the ability to take control of a component or components of the death management process in their area.

For example, local authorities may choose to direct local actors such as funeral directors, mortuaries owners, crematoriums owners and others, to streamline the death management process. This may include an increase in the operating times of crematoriums, directing companies to use their vehicles to move bodies, or directing others not directly involved in the funeral sector, to provide necessary support.

Only in the most extreme situations where there is a risk to public health would the powers of direction be used and only be used when scientific evidence and operational advice suggests that it is necessary. Activating the powers will ensure the local death management system continues to work effectively to protect public health and the dignity of the deceased. Personal choice will be respected as far as possible, especially in regard to how we handle loved ones after they have passed.

Protecting and supporting people

We are asking people to stay at home if they have a high temperature or a new and continuous cough, or if anyone in their household has one of those 2 symptoms. In the event of a wider outbreak of COVID-19, the number of people that would be off work would increase significantly. This would include those that were displaying-virus like symptoms and those who were self-isolating as a precautionary measure.

We want to ensure the Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) provisions support people in complying with this request and that they have retrospective effect from 13 March 2020. By ensuring that people receive SSP from the first day that they are off work, we will ensure that those who are unwell or have been instructed to self-isolate can do so without the fear of losing pay. This will be an important measure in the event of a severe outbreak. By refunding small businesses, we hope to alleviate the significant financial burden on employers through increased SSP costs.

The bill is therefore seeking to:
  • give the government the power to temporarily suspend the rule that means SSP is not paid for the first 3 days of work that you miss because of sickness. These days are known as waiting days. Lifting this rule will enable us to respond quickly to an outbreak
  • enable employers with fewer than 250 employees to reclaim SSP paid for sickness absences relating to coronavirus during the period of the outbreak. This is because the government wants to ensure that businesses are supported to deal with the temporary economic impacts of an outbreak of coronavirus
  • require industry to provide information about food supplies, in the event that an industry partner does not co-operate with our current voluntary information-sharing arrangements during a period of potential disruption

Saturday 16 November 2019

Brent faces up to the challenge to plan for the next 20 years - details of report going to Full Council on November 25th



Brent Council, with partners, has faced up to the formidable challenge of devising an 'Inclusive Growth Strategy' for the next 20 years.

The report on the Strategy which is to be discussed at Full Council on November 25th  states:


The Inclusive Growth Strategy (IGS) is a long term strategy that identifies choices available to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of growth over the next 20 years. Broader in scope than a Regeneration Strategy, the IGS is supported by a detailed evidence base drawn up in-house by officers across all the council service areas, with early support provided by the LSE Cities programme. The IGS builds on the medium term Borough Plan and takes a longer term scan of the horizon of different futures. Headline growth trends and impacts considered in the IGS include: 

Brent’s population projected to grow 17% and reach 400,000 people by 2040

Brent’s population over 80 years old projected to double by 2040

Automation placing a third of jobs in Brent at higher risk


Employment growth in creative and circular economies 


Rise of older workers driving demand for retraining and flexible employment 

Increasing housing unaffordability, as house prices outstrip wage growth 

Private renters increasing to be 40% of London’s households by 2025 

Growing water demand and widening deficit versus available water supply

Sewer capacity at critical levels by 2050 in north and west parts of Brent 

Transformation of Brent’s energy mix to reach zero carbon by 2050 – requiring fossil fuel use reduction of 80% and increased renewable energy use of 500% 

Ageing population, obesity levels and increased risks for black and minority ethnic groups, driving even higher levels of diabetes in Brent’s population 

Continued decline in traditional retail and greater high street diversification
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The full report with an attached Action Plan is a hefty 73 pages and embedded below for convenience. Click bottom right square for full page view.

Tuesday 27 June 2017

Clean Air for Brent - Public Meeting July 6th


Brent Council and new coalition group Clean Air for Brent (CAfB) invite you to our high-profile public meeting:

The Air We Breathe: how  pollution is affecting us and what we can do about it at Brent Civic Centre, Thursday 6th July, 7-9pm.

Doors open for stalls and refreshments from 6.30pm.  Free event - all are welcome.

Speakers include:
World-renowned health expert Prof Sir Michael Marmot (view profile), Simon Birkett, Founder and Director of Clean Air in London, Cllr Eleanor Southwood, Cabinet Member for the Environment, Brent Council , and Elliot Treharne, Air Quality Manager, GLA.

Hywel Lloyd of think tank, IPPR, will facilitate an interactive discussion. 

It's your chance to question the experts, learn what our authorities are doing locally about air pollution, and what you can do.

Nearly 9,500 people die early each year in London due to long-term exposure to air pollution; in 2016, there were 1,810 road deaths on Great Britain's roads.