Tag Archives: Norfolk
A special kitchen for adults and children with learning difficulties
Charity kitchen to boost work skills is opened
Dean Steele – Smith with his support worker Vanessa Barber.Photo: Steve Adams
By sophie wyllie
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
12:00 PM
Children and adults with learning disabilities will be able to learn work skills after a storeroom was transformed into a kitchen.
The new space for the About With Friends charity, based on Holt Road, Cromer, was officially opened by North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb.
About With Friends was started 11 years ago by Helen Dalton-Hare and it allows children and adults with learning disabilities from across Norfolk to develop skills including cooking, gardening, horse riding, communication and computer technology.
A smaller kitchen, especially for young people, was opened by Dean Steele-Smith, 17, from Suffield Park in Cromer.
Dean has Down’s Syndrome and traits of autism and cannot speak because of his condition.
His mother Julie Steele-Smith, 49, said: “The new kitchen is fabulous. Cooking has given Dean a purpose. He loves it here.
‘Meal Mates’ feeding scheme helps patients get their meals
KING’S LYNN: Getting matey at mealtimes
Meal Mates feeding scheme at Tilney Ward in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Helen Wise the meal time co-ordinator with patient Jean Hill.
Volunteers at Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital have been swapping their desks for dinner trays to help create a mealtime community on the wards and encourage patients to enjoy their food.
The Meal Mates scheme was introduced in August 2011, prompted by staff concerns at the national reports suggesting that patients in some UK hospitals were going without food and drink because nursing staff were too busy to look after them.
Although no allegations had been made against ward staff at the QEH, staff were concerned that on some wards, those with older patients including some with dementia, that nurses were unable to give patients the time and support needed during mealtimes.
Save our NHS
Norfolk MP presented with ‘save our NHS’ petition
Saturday, March 9, 2013
11:44 AM
A petition against the “privatisation” of the NHS was presented to a Norfolk MP on Friday.
Health minister Norman Lamb receives the 38 Degrees petition. Local campaigners met with health minister and North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb to hand over a national petition signed by more than 240,000 people as part of the 38 Degrees campaign.
The petition opposes the government’s section 75 plans to allow GP commissioners to open up every part of local health services to private companies.
However, Mr Lamb said the coalition government had listened to concerns by agreeing to withdrawing and rewriting section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act.
The 38 Degrees group is now calling on Mr Lamb to make sure that any new regulations honour the promises that ministers made to the public when the act went through Parliament last year.
