peak4

I've no idea what you're talking about. I've replied in a thread/topic, not addressing you personally, apart from when you took issue with me using the word "only"

Bear in mind there's a difference between those classed as homeless and those sleeping rough. It's hard to find the exact numbers just reading the press etc, as the terms are often wrongly used interchangeably, (including by me when I've been careless) There's also several different definitions of Homeless depending on where you look. This BBC report suggests 4000 in Sheffield, but others vary from about 700 upwards. These folk have a roof over their heads, but it might be in a hostel, refuge, or other temporary accommodation, or sofa surfing at a friends house; still classed as homeless though. The rough sleepers, those with no roof at all, who were housed during Covid lockdowns, were smaller in number, but I'm not clear on how many exactly. At one point I remember reading (from the Archer project maybe??) there were 14 in Sheffield, though inevitably that number will vary a bit as folk move around. This report comes up with completely different numbers of Homeless, but suggests that last year, Doncaster had the highest number of rough sleepers in S Yorks with 20 in total, so 14 in Sheffield might be about right.

Forgot to add this link to the previous post. Mixed views by the looks of it; worth a read with an open mind. https://thelead.uk/what-rwandans-really-think-britains-refugee-relocation-plan The Lead Would Britain’s plan to relocate a number of asylum seekers to Rwanda be good for the African nation? “The UK has to take responsibility, see how to handle their refugee problems and not send them to a non-democratic, poor country,” says Victoire Ingabire, a Rwandan political figure and founder of the Development and Liberty for All party. “The country is not economically rich as in the West, but it is extremely rich in humanity and life, caring [where] the West does not. This life of not having much, but willing to share what you have is the life refugees could have in Rwanda,” says Nizeyimana Alexis, a Kigali-based author and political analyst.

I think they were according to this report from AA last year Rwanda launches construction of new homes for deportees from UK UK’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman attends groundbreaking ceremony in show of commitment to deportation deal On the second day of her trip to Rwanda, British Home Secretary Suella Braverman took part in laying the foundation stone for the construction of homes that are meant to accommodate deported migrants from the UK. The project with more than 500 housing units, which will be constructed under the UK deportation deal, includes recreational facilities and an early childhood development center, according to Rwanda's Infrastructure Ministry. There had certainly been some local criticism prior to this; I wonder if that prompted the decision to build new homes? UK asylum seeker deal leaves Rwanda hostel residents homeless Guardian and elsewhere; The African press links I could find were behind a paywall Survivors of Rwandan genocide were told to vacate hostel two days after Priti Patel signed £120m deal Former residents of a hostel in Rwanda who were forced to leave under a controversial deal to house asylum seekers flown from the UK say they have been left homeless and destitute while the property remains unused. The men, all of whom are survivors of the Rwandan genocide, had lived in Hope Hostel in Kigali for up to eight years. But they were told to vacate two days after Priti Patel, the British home secretary, signed a £120m agreement to send refugees arriving in the UK by small boats to the east African country.

What unlimited immigration? UK immigration is controlled by our government, who issue visa etc, which by definition do limit immigration; maybe not to the levels you or I would wish, but they do provide a limit.

How would one plan to do that without accessing French territorial waters or airspace?

Beat me to it with the pay per mile flyers; I scanned the QR code earlier, and it looks very much like a data harvesting exercise as well as a misleading campaign. Mr Largan get involved in similar stuff just over the border, the no so directly misleading. Tactics such as local surveys, and launching petitions on subjects which have already been decided. Scroll down to the section on Data Scraping; several other Tory MPs are alleged to have employed similar methods; offhand I can't remember which ones. https://centralbylines.co.uk/politics/hassle-in-high-peak-robert-largans-solar-farm-shenanigans/

Did you notice on which side of the fence the survivors were buried?

Here you go, closed in 1988 I think https://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/topic/16060-the-barley-corn-hotel/

Did you actually read the whole article, including the embedded links, such as this one EXPLAINED What is - and isn't - in Scotland's new Hate Crime Act?

I was wondering whether to reply here, or in the feedback thread, but it does seem directly relevant to this topic. Are the "new" rules really that different to those of most other forums & websites? Yes, they are longer, with more specific clauses then previously on here, but the law(s) in England/Wales & Scotland has also changed since the some earlier editions; site owners & lead moderators do have legal responsibilities too. Most T&Cs seem to deal with these legalities & responsibilities, just trying to ensure contributors treat each other with respect, and generally being a welcoming place for all visitors. For interest, there's a copy of the rules from 2016 preserved here on The Internet Archive. Broadly the same from what I can see, maybe with some additions due to those who sought to circumvent the original T&Cs. I'm sure clarification, or even requests for re-wording, would be considered on the feedback topic.

Except that it's not likely to happen like that; the "new" legislation seems to be getting wildly misrepresented. Patrick Harvie defends 'wildly misrepresented' Hate Crime Act National Scot, but plenty of other sources & authors PATRICK Harvie has defended the Hate Crime Act, saying the legislation is being “wildly misrepresented” and dragged into a “culture war space”. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Show, the Scottish Greens co-leader said “people on the right in particular use phrases like free speech as though it only means the freedom to be abusive and vile and unpleasant and prejudiced”. He said the idea that police would target comedians and theatre actors “couldn’t be further from the truth”. Harvie, meanwhile, said "no individual people" are exempted from the legislation but Police Scotland had "said very clearly that the media reports that that comedians or others would be targeted are complete nonsense." He added: "The law is essentially most of it bringing up to the common standard, hate crime legislation that was much of it already in place, but in disparate places in different bits of legislation, it's consolidating that altogether, so it will be simpler. "And it's also ensuring that the stirring up hatred offences which have been part of the criminal law for decades now, in relation to stirring up racial hatred, for example, that that applies to every other group."

No the article doesn't say "only", but I thought the context made the point itself. You may not be blaming small boat asylum seekers for the national housing shortage, but many others do. We have pretty much the highest level of homeless in Europe, with a below average number of asylum seekers, so compared to the rest of Europe, it's unlikely that the main reason for housing shortage (in Sheffield or the country as a whole) is asylum seekers, as some would have us believe. So yes only 45% of a comparatively small number of people, can be contributing overall population increase in the UK, The very high level of overall immigration to the UK is clearly an issue, which needs further exploration (arguably elsewhere) for a whole variety of reasons, but the queries on this thread were originally about homelessness in Sheffield, where the number of asylum seekers probably has little effect. Sheffield population seems to be growing at about 0.7% per year, so clearly our infrastructure needs upgrading to suit. The annual % change hasn't varied much since 2000, but homelessness in Sheffield has apparently recently risen. Note that homelessness and rough sleeping are not synonymous, though I should have made that clearer in my previous post, much of which was about the latter. Rough sleeping snapshot in England: autumn 2022 HMG Something happened to the Sheffield population 2001 ish in Sheffield; The large increase in Chinese students didn't show until about 15 years ago from what I can tell, but most of them will be in specific student accommodation, so not competing in the private rental market. Sheffield, UK Metro Area Population 1950-2024

I've just added a post query on this elsewhere on the forum (changes & feedback)

If there is a will to do so, the homeless population's lot can be improved hugely, as can be seen from Milton Keynes to Finland. Like so many other things in our current politics, it depend on whether those in charge prefer to help or weaponize a problem. Compassion, not cruelty, is the answer to rough sleeping – we have the proof in Milton Keynes The Guardian When the home secretary calls living in tents “a lifestyle choice” something has gone seriously wrong in her understanding of rough sleeping. Five years ago, Milton Keynes, where I am a councillor, was labelled a “tent city”. Today, no one needs to sleep rough on our streets. Suella Braverman could learn a lot from how we did that, and how it could be replicated elsewhere. For a start, we didn’t make giving people tents a civil offence. Tents are a symptom, not the cause. Finland finds it pays to house the homeless Tortoise Media In Finland, only about one in 1700 people is homeless. The equivalent figure for the UK is about one in 250. How have the Finns done it? By building homes for the homeless, making ending homelessness a national priority and looking after the homeless once housed. Homelessness fell in Finland by 40 per cent between 2019 and 2022 and is down by 20,000 compared with the 1980s, in a country of 5.5 million. The government estimates it saves €32 million a year by housing those who would otherwise sleep rough, chiefly through reduced healthcare costs. A Paradigm Shift in Social Policy How Finland Conquered Homelessness Der Spiegel a long article, but well worth reading, for anyone with a genuine interest in homelessness. For years, the number of homeless people has been rising in Europe. But not in Finland. The country's Housing First program aims to eliminate the problem by 2027. But how? There's an interesting list on Wiki; re-index it on homeless per 10,000 population, and see that we come 38th from highest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population Noticeably about the highest proportionally in Europe of homeless people. Also note that the UK has below the average number asylum seekers per capita in Europe. Refugee Council, but slightly out of date Small boat crossings only amount to about 45% of UK applications. BBC

No reason they shouldn't be happy to publish it; Savatna is a legitimate polling company, who The Telegraph commission for polls themselves. https://savanta.com/published-polls/

It really can't help when access to mental health services in this country is potentially so difficult, and the topic is being used by some to stigmatise those suffering, and help promote culture wars. This article from MIND last year pretty much mirrors the thread's title Mental health must not become a new front in the culture wars Mental health must not be allowed to become a new front in the culture wars. Otherwise, the nation risks taking a gigantic step back when looking after its mental health. But when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions says Britain’s approach to mental health culture is in danger of having “gone too far” that is exactly what he risks doing. What the Secretary of State's words did, deliberate or otherwise, was distract attention from the real issue. Lost in the noise of “mental health culture” having “gone too far” was yet more evidence of the perilous state of mental health services and skyrocketing poverty, so often the cause of mental health problems.

I recently put up quite a bit of info about that sort of thing, with the links to explore, in a couple of different posts on other threads. As well as these links, there is also the issue that we are providing medical graduate training ( though not enough) but then failing to provide placements for them afterwards. 791 medical graduates could miss out on NHS junior doctor training The Guardian a couple of years ago, and I don't think it's improved much Highest ever number of medical students have been told there are no places for them this year Re the levels of foreign nationals in the NHS And one about GPs coming up to retirement, leaving us with further looming issues This post and a couple on the following page, but there's a lot of links and data to get ones head around Note in particular the link about the IEA on the following page after this post

And another from Q-Park I've never been up there myself, so no idea what, if any, action was taken. https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/people/grieving-sheffield-mum-makes-high-rise-safety-plea-after-sons-tragic-death-3378789

I appreciate in this case a hotel, rather than social housing, but I vividly remember this sad incident and the amount of trolls who came out wherever it was reported. The hotel had previously been deemed unfit for refugees, and a subsequent inspection found more faulty window restraints. I never did see the final inquest report. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9908311/Five-year-old-Afghan-refugee-falls-70ft-death-hotel-window-Sheffield.html

But the ones coming now need visas, whereas EU/EEA citizens were able to work more freely. Whilst some of the recent newspaper reports about a proportion of those visas was slightly incorrect, there's still plenty of questions to be asked, as well as addressing issues of modern slavery. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/response-to-an-inspection-of-the-immigration-system-as-it-relates-to-the-social-care-sector/the-home-office-response-to-the-independent-chief-inspector-of-borders-and-immigrations-report-an-inspection-of-the-immigration-system-as-it-relates The ban on care workers’ family members: what will be the impact? Migration Observatory Since becoming eligible for the Skilled Worker route in February 2022, the number of overseas care workers coming to the UK has increased sharply. The care route has brought significant challenges. In particular, the care industry is a high-risk industry for exploitation. Widespread qualitative evidence suggests that many care workers are not receiving the pay or working conditions they were promised, while others have experienced severe forms of exploitation and modern slavery. Then there is the very real issue of the impact on the health care systems of the countries supplying staff over here; Where do health and care visa holders come from? HMG report Since the inclusion of care workers on the H&CW visa, 99.9% of care workers sponsored through the route have been from non-European Economic Area (EEA) countries. Excluding care workers, 98% of H&CW visas have also been from non-EEA countries over the same period. Table 2.3 shows the top nationalities using the H&CW visa by occupation. Of these countries, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Ghana are on the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s red list meaning these countries should not be actively targeted when recruiting health and care professionals given their own workforce problems. There have been reports that this exodus of health and care workers is having a negative impact on the health and social care sector in countries of origin.

Regarding waiting times for A&E etc Up the road a bit from me, we now have a private walk in centre if you are able to afford it, focusing specially on those who don't want to have to wait at the NHS one. Long list of exclusions,; I guess they only want conditions which are simple and cheap to treat, and thus more profitable, whilst being lower insurance risk. They also offer a private GP service too ; I wonder how many NHS GPs will move to such services, thus exacerbating the local GP shortages; none through this provider in Sheffield yet though. Fed up waiting for an ambulance, we are starting to see private emergency ambulances becoming available too; only £99 Private ambulance service charging £99 opens to tackle patient delays amid concerns over a ‘two-tier’ system Independent Without going into details, last year I called 111 for someone, with what I judged to be a potentially life changing condition. (I had a good reason to not go direct to 999, which I'm not explaining here). This was late afternoon; I received the correct advice, from a qualified practitioner rather than just a call handler, who explained that the next available ambulance would be some time after lunch the following day. 😞 Fortunately I was in a position to provide immediate transport to a pre-arranged A&E appointment: in the event of a patient deterioration, the only advice was "Drive faster, but don't have an accident as there aren't any ambulances ". To access my own GP for appointments and repeat prescriptions, I used to use NHS App (note this is different to NHS Login; it provides an entry into the latter). My new GP wants me to use Patient Access which as well as allowing the above, also provides direct links to a whole range of private healthcare providers. It must be very appealing to some patients, who find that the earliest available appointment is a minimum of 5 weeks away, longer if you want to see a specific GP.

Indeed, it does doesn't it. Whilst it's not happening to replace GPs (yet) some are advocating more use of Physician Associates to help address the shortage of fully qualified doctors. There are objections of course BMA calls for independent investigation into hospital trusts replacing doctors with physician associates on medical rotas. by BMA media team The BMA is calling on the Health Secretary to launch an independent inquiry into the use of physician associates (PAs)– who are not medically qualified – on medical rotas, in place of doctors in hospital trusts in England. The Association says Victoria Atkins must get to the bottom of the scale across the NHS in England, how it has been allowed to happen and what steps must be taken to end it. This follows the evidence uncovered by the Daily Telegraph alongside the BMA’s own findings from its members. Doctors have been reporting instances where gaps in medical rotas are being filled by physician associates, despite Government ministers and leaders of NHS England making promises that PAs cannot and must not be used to replace doctors. RCGP strengthens ‘red lines’ on Physician Associates working in general practice Royal College of GPs Whilst continuing to recognise that regulation of PAs is vital and must happen as soon as possible, Council members raised significant concerns that PA regulation by the General Medical Council could increase confusion amongst patients about the differences between doctors and PAs. As we know, the IEA is still very influential on our current government, even though its funding is at best opaque, but read up on The Atlas Network amongst others. How to abolish the NHS IEA Blog Rather than focusing on the gradual introduction of ‘market reforms’ and public-private partnerships within the NHS system, an alternative strategy would seek to bypass the NHS by liberating the private healthcare sector such that the NHS became less and less relevant as more and more people opted out of state provision to avoid long waiting lists and substandard care. But radical regulatory reform is necessary if a dynamic private health sector offering low-cost, high quality and innovative treatment is to emerge. A selection of regulatory changes is suggested below: Perhaps most importantly, the compulsory licensing of medical professionals should be abolished. Anyone should be at liberty to practice as a doctor or nurse, with patients relying on brand names or competing voluntary associations to ensure quality Ending current restrictive practices is essential to enable private firms to increase productivity in the sector.

It's not something for which I can really provide a link, as it relates to personal conversations with several GPs I knew via motorsport. A good few years ago, the NHS recruited lots of GPs from the Indian subcontinent; it was easier, as their training was pretty much a mirror of ours. Most of them would have been a similar age when they arrived, and thus all came up for retirement at the same time; various governments of all colours should have foreseen that this was a potential problem looming, but failed to take action to replace them when they retired. Subsequent to that Pressures in general practice data analysis BMA We monitor data on GP workforce, working patterns and appointment numbers to help build a picture of the level of strain GP practices in England are under. GP practices across the country are experiencing significant and growing strain with declining GP numbers, rising demand, struggles to recruit and retain staff and knock-on effects for patients. Hundreds of practices on the brink as half their GPs are over retirement age GP On-line via archive.is Headline only as it's a professionals site At least half of GPs are over retirement age at 10% of England's GP practices - leaving hundreds of practices at potential risk of collapse, analysis by GPonline reveals. European GPs registering to work in NHS dropped after Brexit referendum GP on-line again, but this story opens fully for me By Luke Haynes on the 12 November 2019 The number of European GPs registering to work in the UK has dropped since the 2016 Brexit referendum, while an increasing number have left UK practice, GMC figures show. Brief: GP Shortages in England pdf from Royal Collage of GPs Key Statistics GP Workforce • Despite an agreement from Government that we need 6,000 extra GPs the number of FTE fully qualified GPs has fallen by 5% between September 2015 and 2021 whilst the population is 4% larger and health problems are getting more complex. • There were 45 fully qualified FTE GPs per 100,000 patients in April 2022 compared to 52 in September 2015, when records began. This means that on average, GPs are currently looking after 2,056 patients, which is more than 10% more patients than in 2015. • 42% of GPs say that they are planning to quit the profession in the next five years. • 80% of GPs expect working in general practice to get worse over the next few years, compared to only 6% who expect it to get better. GP Workload • Last year, general practice in England carried out almost 370 million consultations, this is 18.5% more than in 2019. Over the same time period, the number of clinical administration tasks delivered by GPs in England rose by 28%, up to 107 million in 2021. • In 2021 over 45% of all patients had an appointment on the day that they contacted their practice and 76% were seen within a week.

Indeed, I probably have too many tools in my workshop. Some of those of course are used to makes tooling for other tools in the workshop. Ad Infinitum.