At any time of the year…. contact your local Councillor
It is important for us all to keep in touch with individual members of the Council – our ELECTED members. It takes around 15 minutes to email our local Councillors, requesting that s/he is proactive in working against any further cuts to health and social services; please ask for a response to your email.
The names and email addresses of ward councillors can be found on your Councils website; if you already know the names of your local councillors, then their email addresses are listed on our links page here. If possible, please copy in the Chair of the Councils Health and Wellbeing Board, and the Chair of the Councils Health Scrutiny Committee – they can be identified through your Councils website, and their email addresses can be found on our links page. For good measure, please also copy in your local Healthwatch group – on our links page.
This is democracy in action – please ensure that your voice is heard.
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KONPNE puts formal questions to full Council meetings
A road sign welcoming people to England and Northumberland. Northumberland is a county in North East England. The northernmost county of England, it borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham and Tyne and Wear to the south and the Scottish Borders to the north.
Date 10/04/2018 COUNCIL FORCED TO DENY CLAIMS THEIR STREET LIGHTS CAUSE CANCER, MISCARRIAGES AND NOSE BLEEDS Gateshead Council has been forced to deny claims that their STREET LIGHTS cause cancer, miscarriages and nose bleeds. Gateshead Council has released an official statement after “conspiracy theories” began circulating on social media about the lights being fitted with 5G technology and killing birds and insects. The statement reads: “We are aware that certain individuals are frightening local people with false stories about the street lights in Gateshead despite the fact we, and others, have told them repeatedly that their allegations are entirely false. “For your reassurance, we’d like to set the record straight. “Gateshead Council DOES NOT use 5G technology in any of its street lights, or in any other capacity. It has never done so.”The street lights in Gateshead will not give you cancer. See copy By North News
NHS campaigners in the North East regularly put formal questions to the seven North East councils to determine their stance on changes to the NHS – given that the ICSs are under instruction from NHS England, our local Councillors are our only representatives, and we need to ensure that they are accountable in standing up for our NHS.
NHS privatisation: Question to full Council meetings, winter 2020/21
Prompted by the huge growth in “outsourcing” / aka NHS privatisation (see here), members of KONPNE put formal questions to the SEVEN local North East Councils about privatisation in their area.
Click here to find out how your Council shaped up…..
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The new “Integrated Care System” and local Councils: Question to full Council meetings, autumn and winter 2022
Given the recent changes in law and NHS structure, NHS campaigners in the North East put formal questions to the seven North East councils to determine their stance on the new “Integrated Care System”.
Click here to find out how your Council shaped up…..
and click here to read our views on Integrated Care Systems…..
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Decision-making at Council meetings – 2023
KONPNE are keen for people to follow decision-making at local Council meetings – either by tracking Council minutes online or by attending as an observer. It is crucial that we are aware of discussions at specific meetings (the “Health and Wellbeing” and the “Health Scrutiny” meetings) so that we are able to keep up-to-date with Council and ICS decision-making.
Are you able to assist with your local Council – one of Newcastle, Northumberland, North Tyneside, Gateshead or Durham? The papers of the meetings are in the public domain, and they are all sub-committees of the Council.
Info / possible options to consider:
– If you do decide to attend the meetings of a specific Council, you will not be expected to speak or represent KONPNE in any way. You will be there as an observer. The meetings are all open to the public. The venues, dates and times of meetings are listed on the website of each Council.
– To save you time, please don’t feel obliged to attend both the “Health and Wellbeing” and “Health Scrutiny” meetings…. attending just one would give a good flavour of developments in a specific Council area
– Some meetings are viewable via Zoom, so there may not be a need to attend in person
– The agenda for each meeting is viewable beforehand, and there would be no need to attend if there is no relevant topic under discussion
– It may be possible to get an understanding of what is happening by deciding not to attend any meetings in person and, instead, to focus on tracking and viewing the minutes which are freely available via the Council website
– Instead of attending / viewing the minutes of a specific Council, another option is to attend or view the minutes of the “Joint OSC for the North East and North Cumbria ICS and North and Central ICPs” – this is the meeting held every two months, hosted by Gateshead Council, and involves reps from all of the Councils, so it would provide a regional overview rather than focusing on one Council. The minutes are here: https://democracy.gateshead.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=305
Whichever way forward you decide on, any insight would be very useful. The above options, or a hybrid of all, is completely up to you – all is valuable. Whichever you choose, we would really appreciate some brief feedback by email to konpnortheast@gmail.com or verbally at the KONPNE meeting. This work generally averages out at around one or two meetings per month per Council – so keeping up-to-date and sending a brief update to KONPNE on matters relating to the ICS may take around or two hours per month….
Please contact us at konpnortheast@gmail.com if you are able to help out – we are hoping to build up a group of KONPNE members who are willing to be involved in this way.
Click on the links to the Council websites listed below to find out the details of specific meetings – especially the dates, as the usual meeting day can change from month to month.
>> Newcastle City Council (held at Civic Centre, Newcastle)
Health and Wellbeing Board (“Wellbeing for Life”) meet every two months on Tuesdays or Wednesdays at 4.30pm
Health Scrutiny Committee meet monthly on the second Thursday of the month at 4.30pm
Dates of future meetings, past minutes and further details are at: https://democracy.newcastle.gov.uk
>> North Tyneside Council (held at the Quadrant, Silverlink)
Health and Wellbeing Board meet every two months on Thursdays at 2pm
Adult Social Care, Health and Wellbeing Sub-Committee (Scrutiny) meet monthly on the first or second Thursday at 6pm
Dates of future meetings, past minutes and further details are at: https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/184/decision-making
>> Northumberland County Council (held at County Hall, Morpeth)
Health and Wellbeing Board meet every two months on the second Thursday at 10am
Health and Wellbeing OSC (Scrutiny Committee) meet monthly / two monthly on the first Tuesday at 1pm
Dates of future meetings, past minutes and further details are at: http://committee.northumberland.gov.uk/CommitteeList.aspx
>> Gateshead Council (held at Gateshead Civic Centre)
Health and Wellbeing Board meet every two months on Friday at 10am
Care, Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee meet monthly on Tuesdays at 1.30pm
Dates of future meetings, past minutes and further details are at: http://democracy.gateshead.gov.uk/mgListCommittees.aspx?bcr=1
>> Durham County Council (held at County Hall, Durham)
Health and Wellbeing Board meet every two months (days variable) at 9.30am
Adults, Wellbeing and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee meet every two months (days variable) at 9.30am
Dates of future meetings, past minutes and further details are at: https://democracy.durham.gov.uk/ieDocHome.aspx
>> Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) for NENC “Integrated Care System” and North and Central “Integrated Care Partnership” (held at Gateshead Civic Centre)
This Committee comprises Councillor representatives from all Councils in the NE area. The Committee meet every two months on the third or fourth Monday at 1.30pm or 2pm
Dates of future meetings, past minutes and further details are at: https://democracy.gateshead.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=305
Members of other local health campaign groups also have some presence at some of the South Tyneside, and Sunderland Council meetings – if you live in one of these areas and wish to offer help to one of the local campaign groups by tracking or attending the Council meetings in your area, again, please contact KONPNE and we will put you in touch with the relevant local group.
Thank you.
Your help with this initiative would be greatly appreciated.
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Parliamentary reports
>> Parliamentary report and guidance on the Effectiveness of Local Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committees (December 2017)
>>> and the Governments response to the report on the Effectiveness of Local Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committees (March 2018) – this recommends actively encouraging public participation
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2022: Three questions to put to candidates at Council election time (or please feel free to use variants of these themes at any other time of the year!)
Knock knock….
At this time of the year, we can guess who’s there….
Here’s three key questions to put to prospective Councillors – or, indeed, all Councillors even if they are not facing an election this year….and if there is no knock on the door, please click here for email addresses of current Councillors….
WE NEED COUNCILLORS WHO ARE ACTIVE IN PROTECTING OUR NHS!!
a) What will you do to encourage local NHS commissioning services to keep healthcare within the NHS? (Over the last decade, £96 billion has been paid to private companies for NHS services – privatisation puts profits before patients).
b) How will you work to increase democracy in local health structures? (The Health and Care Bill reduces the contributions of councillors and local people on NHS decision-making bodies)
c) What are you doing to fight for fair pay for all NHS staff? (The current pay offer of 3% is derisory and unacceptable. It is not surprising that there are 100,000 vacancies in the NHS – an average nurse in the UK has lost 20% of income over the past 10 years)
….and please let us know responses at konpnortheast@gmail.com – thank you!
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2023: Election Special: Answer the door, and put these three questions to prospective Councillors
konpnortheast.com 