Author Archives: wendy

Redbridge young carers get some acting tips

EastEnders actress, Jo Joyner, shares acting tips with young carers in Redbridge

9:10am Tuesday 26th March 2013 in News By Melanie Attlesey

Jo Joyner with the young carers Jo Joyner with the young carers

An EastEnders actress shared acting tips with a group of young carers at a workshop.

Jo Joyner, who plays Tanya Branning in the BBC One soap, met 12 carers aged 14 to 23 on Thursday at the Barnardo’s Indigo Young Carers Service in Granville Road, Ilford.

The workshop was the last in a series of four designed to help the carers improve their confidence.

Mariella Creegan, 14, who attended the session said: “The workshops have helped me a lot and have given me the confidence to go to a theatre group and audition for a part in their performances of the musical Sister Act.

“I couldn’t have done this before coming to these sessions.”

Ms Joyner said: “It has been a privilege to come along to the workshops and all the young people have been so warm and welcoming.

Wonderful volunteers helping the sick and carers stuck in the snow

Volunteers help nurses reach critically ill patients

22 March 2013
Snow response in north Wales

As heavy weather causes disruption across the UK, our volunteers are helping nurses reach critically ill patients and delivering vital medication through the snow.

Following a call-out from health officials in North Wales, Red Cross emergency response teams are currently using Land Rover 4×4 vehicles to provide help in very challenging circumstances.

One team is battling through the blustery conditions to ensure nurses can continue to reach – and treat – the critically ill in their own homes. Another Land Rover is being used to run vital insulin supplies to the homes of patients.

Toyah Willcox heartbreaking story of her beloved mum

Toyah Willcox: Doctors put my mother on ‘death pathway’ without telling me

Toyah Willcox, the singer and actress, has spoken of her shock at learning that doctors had placed her elderly mother on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway.

Toyah Willcox, the singer and actress Photo: ROGER TAYLOR

7:09AM GMT 25 Mar 2013

Miss Willcox said she was not consulted about the decision to withdraw life–saving treatment.

She said she overheard a nurse tell her 81-year-old mother: “It’s all right Barbara, the end is near.”

The singer said she had wanted to support her mother when she was told she was being put on the Liverpool Care Pathway, which involves withdrawing invasive treatments or tests from patients in their final days and hours in order to ease their suffering.

Her mother, who had been suffering from cancer, died in her sleep in September 2011, a week after being admitted to St Richard’s Hospice in Worcester.