Safeguarding and the London Ambulance Service - Patients Forum public meeting on December 13th

Our next meeting of the London Ambulance Service Patients Forum will be on Monday 13th December and the major topic will be safeguarding for both adults and children. Reporting of safeguarding by LAS staff across London is on the increase and particularly in the Croydon area. The statistics for Croydon have raised a lot of concerns with health activists and others there and they have taken some of these concerns to the Local Authority and the PCT. The response from the LAS has been that there is nothing in particular to be concerned about in Croydon and it is because the staff reporting there are doing a very diligent job. The problem is, they respond, that there is underreporting of safeguarding incidents across the rest of London.

Lynne Strother, who is speaking, is also one of the Vice Chairs of the Forum and will be bringing a lot of experience about safeguarding issues and how it affects pensioners and elderly people in particular. This is a particularly important issue as it applies to care homes etc, where there have been some very serious cases discovered. Anyone working in health or social care now has to undertake a safeguarding course and I did mine last year. There are some links here and here to relevant sites.

PATIENTS’ FORUM LONDON

AMBULANCE SERVICES

‘Safeguarding issues and the LAS’ – Gary Bassett, Head of Patient Experience LAS and Lynne Strother, Director London Older People’s Forum

Monday December 13th 2010

5.30-7.30pm

Conference Room, LAS Headquarters, 220 Waterloo Road, SE1

Forum’s Officers:

CHAIR: Dr Joseph Healy j-j@freezone.co.uk or PatientsForumLAS@aol.com

VICE CHAIR: Sister Josephine Udie Sisterjossi@hotmail.com

VICE CHAIR: Lynn Strother director.glf@pop3.poptel.org.uk

VICE CHAIR: Malcolm Alexander PatientsForumLAS@aol.com

BSL signers will be available