Ashcroft provides essential care services for women who experience mental health difficulties. It is an almost unique service, being one of only two women-only specialist mental health units in the country and is a hugely valuable resource. Norfolk should be proud of its assets, not trying to save a few pounds forcing Ashcroft to close its doors. Find out more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30352968 Latest update: http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/update_more_than_2_900_people_sign_online_petition_to_save_the_ashcroft_residential_home_1_3876343

Iqra is 18. She was a full time school pupil yesterday, today she is unemployed. She can't attend college full time because she has high anxiety levels caused by her autism. There are not enough part time specialist places for her to get the same opportunity as her mainstream peers. THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL – EIS HIGHLIGHTS SCALE OF COLLEGE ASN CUTS The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country’s largest union for teachers and lecturers, has highlighted the significant impact of long term cuts to Further Education funding on Additional Support Needs (ASN) provision in Scotland’s colleges. The EIS submitted Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to each college in Scotland asking key questions regarding each institution’s ASN provision. The results show a significant decline, nationally, in the level of support available to students with ASN in Scotland’s FE colleges – with significant regional differences in provision. EIS-FELA (Further Education Lecturers’ Association) President John Kelly said, “The results of this national survey of ASN provision in Scotland’s colleges clearly indicate a significant decline in ASN provision for students since the Government began implemented funding cuts for FE colleges four years ago. The evidence from this EIS-FELA survey shows that it is the students who both require and deserve specialist additional support that are suffering the deepest and most damaging consequences of funding cuts. Continued funding cuts have led to a systematic reduction in ASN activity and a reduction in total college capacity to support ASN students – the most vulnerable students in society. The sad truth is that cuts to ASN provision make it far more difficult, if not impossible, for many of these learners to access education at all.” He added, “The Survey also identifies an alarming range in the amount of ASN provision different FE regions provide, which raises serious equality concerns. For example, Dundee College had 699 DPG18 (ASN) students in 2012-13 whilst Aberdeen College had 240, despite being a much larger college. In the same year; West Lothian College, Aberdeen College and Anniesland College all delivered similar amounts of DPG18 ASN activity despite significant differences in their size and geographic footprint. ASN provision is erratic and it would seem purely historical, with no nationwide planning, that the levels of support ASN students receive is dependant mainly on where they live. For Learners with ASN, potentially having to travel to an institution in another part of the country can present a significant barrier to their access to education.” He went on to say, “These are the most vulnerable students in tertiary education and they deserve better. The EIS-FELA survey shows clear trends over the last four years – and starkly identifies the decline in ASN provision within every metric we surveyed – fewer DPG 18 students, fewer ASN courses, fewer qualified staff, fewer rooms and so on. The FE Colleges are now funded as a public sector, with the Scottish Funding Council overseeing regional outcome agreements based on government priorities. ASN provision needs to be restored to 2009-10 levels, and greater consistency of ASN activity delivered across Scotland. The Scottish Government and the SFC will need to ensure that all Regional Outcome Agreements have similar terms.”

I work in a local authority and I am dismayed by the affect that Government grant cuts are having on jobs and services. Maybe at one point there was some spare flesh to cut from local government, but that time is long gone and we are now cutting deep into the bone. Local authorities provide vital services to the most vulnerable such as the elderly, people with physical and mental health problems and learning disabilities, the homeless and looked-after children. Huge cuts are being made to these services by the government at the same time as the need for these services is going through the roof – largely because of job losses and cuts to housing, disability and employment benefits. This means that the government is taxing the most needy and least able to pay in society TWICE. Firstly by cutting their benefits, and then again by cutting the money paid to local authorities to support them. Local authorities are also providers and protectors of the culture and heritage of all of our towns and cities. They look after libraries, museums, galleries, parks and local countryside. These areas are often the first to suffer because they are none-statutory services. How much poorer are the educational and cultural opportunities for local people because many councils have been forced to close libraries and museums because of cuts? People who have dedicated years to providing support and services to the people in their communities for very modest rates of pay are being forced out of worthwhile jobs while incompetent bankers carry on lining their own pockets. Making tens of thousands of local authority workers redundant only adds to the people unable to contribute to the economy or pay income tax, many may well go on to lose their home, adding to the housing benefit bill. At the end of the day, it is not public sector workers, or immigrants or people on benefits who have caused this financial crisis. Please, whatever your political persuasion, think long and hard about whether it is fair that jobs and services that are dedicated to serving and helping people in your community are losing nearly half their government grant, while the very banks and super-rich people who put us in this mess in the first place are getting off scot-free? This country has been built on the ideals of fairness, humanity and respect for the ordinary person. These cruel and unfair cuts attack that very foundation of our nationhood. The most vulnerable people are having their quality of life cut from just about liveable to unbearable; at the same time the number of billionaires in the world has doubled since the financial crisis started, and the 5 richest families in the UK own as much wealth as the bottom 20% of the population. Meanwhile it is estimated by the Institute of Fiscal Studies that another 300,000 children are soon to be added to the 2.5 million who are currently living in poverty in this country if the next round of cuts go ahead. Please sign this petition and lets show the government that we will no longer accept vital jobs and services being attacked to make up for the mistakes of the banks and super-rich.

These Tory cutbacks in care funding are KILLING people. Already thousands of people all over Britain who have had their care funding slashed or cut off and who are too ill to work or even to look after themselves properly are thought to have seen no option but to commit suicide because they can see no other way out. As the Tory 'Austerity Measures' cut ever deeper, there will be thousands more. Even the DWP have been obliged to admit that since 2012, up to 60 people have killed themselves as a direct result of cutbacks in care and benefit funding, and there are thousands more they will not admit to. Every week, there are stories of yet more disabled people denied the care they need, who are dying. There will be tens of thousands more who will be forced to live in worsening squalor and neglect because they can't pay for the care they need. The story of double amputee Mark Cotton, reported in the Telegraph and Argus on 15th November 2014 is just one of many. I am affected too; I have moderate to severe ME and am too ill even to shower without assistance, and have just had all of my care funding cut off. Many more people I know, members of Hampshire Friends with ME - some in even worse health than I am - have been denied any care funding at all. There will be a rise in hospital admissions as peoples' health is affected by neglect, leading to secondary problems and even malnutrition. At the same time, care companies are going out of business because people who need their help cannot afford to pay for the care they need; the latest casualty in my area is Both Worlds. If you are healthy and working now, but being paid so little that you cannot afford to save for retirement or emergencies, and you lose your health through accident or chronic illness, YOU COULD BE NEXT. You may need help, and find that there is none. The money exists, but the one percenters want to keep it all themselves in legalized tax dodges and corporate tax cuts amounting to billions of pounds. Don't believe the lie that there is not enough money, when the government does not hesitate to bail out the banks with billions of pounds of taxpayers' money while allowing global companies like Vodafone, Starbucks and Amazon to pay negligible tax on the profits they make in Britain. ORDINARY PEOPLE ARE DYING WHILE THE RICH MAKE THEMSELVES RICHER, and the gap between the wealth held by the richest and the poorest people grows ever wider. THIS INSANITY MUST END. CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE KILLER TORY CUTBACKS.

diabetes affects all ages, sex and ability/disability however when having the screening done everyone is rendered almost sightless for a few hours and therefore extremely vulnerable - if they have to travel to another town to get this screening it they would either have to have an escort and take several buses or an expensive taxi and some diabetics are old and disabled plus they may be alone therefore having the test done locally would suit all concerned

Because these people are youngsters

This is important for the fact children all over the country up to the age of 18 are being left to themselves to deal with a mental health condition. Having to wait months or even years to be seen for a review or a meeting. People aged 16-18 being left because they don't know what to do with them. With teachers not seeing that a child is self harming and trying to kill themselves which could help prevent anything drastic happening. The fact that mental health is still a taboo and the answer you get from a doctor when you speak up is it's exams or teenage angst is not professional in the slightest and is not right. This is the next generation now and we need to help them before its too late some funding for children's health services was cut 90% this is not okay.

For the last 5 years, pathology services at Guy's and St Thomas and King's College Hospital's have been managed by Viapath, a for-profit company formed between SERCO and the two hospital Trusts. Since the takeover by Viapath, the service has been plagued by problems; chronic understaffing, inability to recruit and retain, reduced training, closure of vital services and massive financial losses. Now the remaining NHS staff in the service face being transferred out of the NHS on the 1st January 2015. We oppose the transfer of staff and believe that to guarantee a quality and safe service for patients, the staff should remain part of the NHS, and all pathology services should be brought back into the NHS. The alternative is a the running down of a vital service for patients, and the loss of highly skilled and experienced staff. SERCO is a company notorious for poor services, bad employment practices and is being investigated for defrauding the government on other outsourcing contracts. Their involvement in the NHS can only jeopardise patient safety and damage the hospital’s reputation.

The Disabled Student’s Allowance (DSA) is a fund that covers the additional costs of attending university with a disability. It has enabled many thousands of students in the U.K to access higher education where this otherwise would not have been a possibility. A key part of the allowance goes to providing the assistance of support workers. Support workers see students regularly, depending on the student's needs, and are one of the most important aspects of support for students with disabilities at university. The government are proposing a cut to DSA that would remove the funding for a support worker (for full details of what aspects of DSA are being cut and which are remaining in place please see the link below(2)). According to a 2014 study by Randstad: “More than one in three students with a disability (34%) say they would definitely not have attended university without DSA support, while a further 36% are unsure if they would have originally attended. Less than one in three students with a disability (30%) would still definitely have decided to go to university without the support of the DSA.(1)” I am a support worker myself, and two of the students I support have said that they would not have made it through the first year of University without the support they received. I have seen first-hand what a difference the presence of support workers make to students’ experiences of university. It is in the Government’s interests, also, for the funding for support workers to be in place. In the long term, there is much more money to be saved by enabling a large proportion of people with disabilities to enter into work, and hence less reliant on the welfare system, by providing access to higher education. Disabled students who are granted DSA, assigning them support workers, are much more likely to complete their course and get a higher grade(1). The government are defending their decision to make cuts to DSA based on the fact that Higher Education Institutions would be obliged to fund support workers. Although, in theory, this is a legal requirement on the part of Higher Academic Institutions, this would create a market where admitting students with a disability would cost the university a great deal more than non-disabled students, and would result in some universities not providing the necessary quality or quantity of support. For more information on this issue please visit (1) http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2014/november/fight-dsa-cut and for the original statement from David Willetts see (2) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/higher-education-student-support-changes-to-disabled-students-allowances-dsa. If you agree that a cut to DSA funding of support workers is unacceptable, please sign this petition. I will be writing to the three Brighton MPs for delivery on the 20th November, asking them to please vote against this decision, so the matter can come up for debate, and hope to have a wealth of signatures to back my request. Many Thanks, Priya.

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council is attempting to save money by drastically cutting the staffing levels of its library service to the point where we question whether it is in danger of breaching its obligations under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. It is proposing to reduce the opening hours of libraries at a time when it is also requiring Wirral residents to communicate with the authority digitally via the internet. Residents who cannot afford broadband must rely on computers in their local libraries. The people who are trained to help them are the very librarians whose jobs are under threat. These proposed cuts will disproportionally affect the poorer people of the borough and also young people who use libraries for research and as a safe,supportive and quiet place for completing.homework and projects. At a time when the NHS is flagging up that the underlying cause of many illnesses is isolation and loneliness, our Local Authority is planning to restrict access to a valuable service which provides community cohesion and support to thousands of the most vulnerable people in our borough.

The Prime Minister has pledged that everyone should be able to see a GP 8am-8pm seven days a week. Despite this, NHS England have decided that from next September, two GP practices in Tower Hamlets which currently open these hours, the Barkantine Practice and St Andrews Health Centre, will only open 8am-6.30pm Monday-Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturday. Similar cuts will affect hundreds of practices nationally. Along with 30-40% funding cuts, this means that these practices and others will struggle to stay open at all. Please do not allow these surgeries to close. Reverse the cuts and allow GP Surgeries to continue to provide the excellent services their patients benefit from.

Councillors have drawn up and progressed this option with no consultation or briefing with school staff, or any regard whatsoever for the 300 children who will be directly affected if the MAE becomes a residential or commercial property. We are alarmed by the speed of Merton's decision-making and distressed that Councillors have failed to consult - let alone consider - our school community in moving forward to identify their preferred option in isolation. We, the parents, carers, relatives and friends of Joseph Hood Primary School, demand that Merton rethink their "preferred option" until a full consultation has been carried out with the parents and staff of our school as well as with the school's neighbours. #JoHoSaysNO