If you are interested in planning you might like to read the blog “Decisions Decisions Decisions.” There’s lots of stuff about planning across the country. We’ll be adding it to our blogroll.

May 23rd, 2013 | Category: Planning Policy, Web Stuff | Leave a comment

Are you spending too much time on the computer, reading too many emails and clicking on too many facebook items? Need to relax? Try slowing down for two minutes and just listen to the waves of the sea….

Go to http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

May 10th, 2013 | Category: Web Stuff | Leave a comment

We’ve stumbled upon a blog called Trying My Patients . It’s written by someone called Ella , who works in the Ambulance Service “somewhere between Land’s End and John o’Groats”. It is very readable. Here’s an example:

12 year old male, rash on body
….We pulled up outside the house to be greeted by ‘that frantic wave’. You know, the wave I have mentioned before that tells you something isn’t right and you really need to get a wiggle on. I followed the mum through the front door straight in the lounge. The boy was just wearing his underwear which enabled me to see most of his skin. Every part of him was bright red and covered in the worst hives I have ever seen. His face was swollen and he was in untold discomfort. He stood up and rushed to the toilet. It turns out he also had uncontrollable diarrhoea. Although his tongue wasn’t swollen and he denied struggling to breathe I felt his condition was bad enough to treat for anaphylaxis and after a brief conversation with our Clinical Support Desk they agreed.
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Once I’d decided what we were going to do, I then had to do it and this is where the second guessing begun! It is very rare to have to cannulate a child and if we had been 5 minutes from hospital we’d have just run but the fact it was longer and the fact his rash was getting worse by the second I wanted to try for a vein before they all completely vanished…

She also has some very blunt advice for motorists, cyclists, relatives, GPs…. Here’s some of her advice for care homes:

It’s horrible to see the elderly who have spent a lifetime serving the country and paying taxes left in squalor because the care staff don’t give a crap. Invariably there are two sides to every care home. The side that the relatives see during visiting hours and the graveyard shift. During the day, patients are paraded in social areas, full of Amitriptyline and polite, English speaking nurses tend to their needs in full view of anyone who pops by. At shift change they are replaced by a bunch of miserable mis-fits who don’t care one iota about the people they are supposed to be looking after. OK, I’m generalising massively and tarring the good ones with a bad brush but in all honesty the good homes rarely call us so I we don’t see them. They care for their patients as they should and as a result their patients rarely go to hospital. When they do, they are clean, we get a handover, a full history with matching paperwork, an escort and a smile. Sadly we are more likely to get a seriously ill patient, be greeted with a grunt, no handover, no paperwork, no history and no escort. Our patient is likely to have soiled themselves and been left to suffer. These are the homes I want to Take Note. These are the ones that need investigating.

Don’t leave your patient lying in their own faeces.
Don’t tell us they were fine an hour ago when they’ve been dead for 6.
Don’t put your patient to bed after they have gone into cardiac arrest.
Don’t negate to start CPR because “We are short staffed”
Don’t negate to start CPR because “I forgot”
Don’t call yourself a ‘care home’ if you’re not going to care
Don’t put coded doors on every corridor and look annoyed when we knock.
Don’t call 999 just because your patient fell over. Check them first.
Don’t allow a catheter bag to fill to bursting point.
Don’t allow a colostomy bag to fill to bursting point.
Don’t put tea in the mouth of someone who is dead to cover your arse.
Don’t call yourself a ‘care home’ if you’re not going to care
Don’t wait until your patient is septic before calling us.
Don’t leave your patient uncleaned for days on end. We can tell. We can smell.
Don’t look at me blankly when I ask what room we need to go to.
Don’t look at me blankly when I ask what is wrong with the patient.
Don’t look at me blankly when I ask for a medical history.
Don’t call yourself a ‘care home’ if you’re not going to care

Let’s hope the care homes in our area are all better than the ones Ella describes.

April 28th, 2013 | Category: Health and Care, Web Stuff | Leave a comment

If you are interested in local history, or the Wakering area, be sure to look at http://www.wakeringheritage.org.uk/index.html   . The website is full of stuff on Wakering, Barling and Foulness, from executing robbers in Anglo-Saxon times (men were hung, women were drowned) , to a list of people living there in 1874, to the Luftwaffe dropping in during WW2.

My aim is to reveal the history of Great Wakering and its surrounding villages over the past one hundred years. This period covers two World Wars and goes far enough back to the days when, cars, telephones, mobile Phones and computers did not exist. Life was much slower and aspirations lower but most communities co-existed in harmony.

April 26th, 2013 | Category: Barling & Sutton, History and Culture, Military, Wakering & Foulness, Web Stuff | Leave a comment

Why isn’t it possible to look at the northern end of Rayleigh High Street on Google Street?

Bellingham Lane  yes, Websters Way yes, High street no…….

April 3rd, 2013 | Category: Rayleigh, Web Stuff | Comments (6)

You’ve seen FixMyStreet – now have a look at a new website called OpenlyLocal. It’s about making local government ‘more transparent’.

They already have a page for Rochford District They are still developing it, but so far it has stuff like recent planning applications and the average age of people in our district (40.2 years).

It also lists each council ward within the district, and each ward has its own webpage. So if you click on, say, Lodge Ward, you get a map, more population details , information on local policing and fixmystreet reports for Lodge.

Now, OpenlyLocal describes each ward in terms of ‘output areas’, based on census results. Unfortunately they don’t explain what it means, but in case anyone is interested, most of Rochford District is described as some kind of suburb, though Hockley West is described as “Accessible Countryside” and Hawkwell South is described as “Industrial Areas B”.

And intriguingly, Downhall and Rawreth isn’t just listed as suburbs, but as “Prospering Suburbs”. It’s the only part of the district described that way – even Wheatley Ward, which has some pretty impressive houses /mansions hidden away , is only described as “Commuter Suburbs A”.

We can see housebuyers in the future looking at stuff like this when thinking about moving into an area……

March 26th, 2013 | Category: District Wide, Web Stuff | Leave a comment

Here’s another blog, from 13 year old Megan Long of Hockley – except this is a video blog on Youtube! Megan is on CBBC tomorrow – congratulations! Maybe a media career beckons…

Here she is on her blog talking about that awkward holiday, Valentine’s Day…. and how she made cupcakes for everyone in her class…

March 21st, 2013 | Category: Hockley, Web Stuff, YouTube and Video | Leave a comment

Behind the scenes at onlineFOCUS we have some software that tells us how people found our website.

For example, if someone finds us via google, what words did they type in ?

Here’s some examples:

rawreth lane development

watery lane hullbridge

online focus

what do staff earn at sainsburys hockley

However, yesterday lunchtime someone found us by typing in:

i’m on income support and i can’t pay the new rochford council tax

If that person is you – please contact the district council, or contact us at onlinefocus – to see if we can help.

March 20th, 2013 | Category: Council Tax Support Scheme, Poverty, Web Stuff | Leave a comment

Have you heard of the ActionFraud website? They describe themselves as follows:

Who is Action Fraud?

 Action Fraud is the UK’s national fraud reporting centre where you should report fraud if you have been scammed or defrauded.

We provide a central point of contact for information about fraud and financially motivated internet crime. People are scammed, ripped off or conned everyday and we want this to stop. We believe that we can beat fraud if we talk about it.

The service is run by the National Fraud Authority – the government agency that helps to co-ordinate the fight against fraud in the UK. We work with partners in law enforcement – the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, run by the City of London Police – to make sure your fraud reports reach the right place

Report fraud and internet crime

You can report fraud using our online fraud reporting service any time of the day or night; the service enables you to both report a fraud and find help and support. We also provide help and advice over the phone through the Action Fraud contact centre. You can talk to our fraud specialists by calling 0300 123 2040.

Reports taken are passed to the police who may contact you for further information. Action Fraud does not investigate the cases and cannot advise you on the progress of a case.

 

One recent item involves Essex schools and parents – if you haven’t seen this already, be warned!:

School truancy cold calls

Parents are being warned of a scam where fraudsters are cold calling victims and demanding you pay truancy fines [20 February 2013]

Essex County Council issued the warning after a parent of a pupil received a phone call purporting to be from the Education Welfare Service stating that their child had not attended school that day and as a result they had to pay a fine of £340.

The parent was asked to provide her credit/debit card details so that a payment could be made over the phone.

It is important to remember that The Education Welfare Service do not phone parents demanding payment immediately over the phone.  Invoices and penalty notices are sent via the post, and only then are you given the option to pay by phone.

Read more about the fraud on the Essex County Council website.

March 3rd, 2013 | Category: Crime & Policing, Education, Essex & East, Web Stuff | Leave a comment

Congrats to Southend blogger Jack Monroe, who has a new job and a new career – as trainee reporter with the Echo:

It’s been a long journey of job applications – over 300 saved in a folder in my email inbox marked Jobs Applied For, and many more CVs dropped in along the High Street, adverts answered in shop windows and newspapers, and a few jobs picked up and not worked out along the way. I remember the day the advert appeared in the back of the Echo for trainee reporters. I didn’t see it myself, but that morning I learned which of my friends read the Echo on their lunch break, as a slew of text messages, emails and phonecalls ensued telling me that there was an advert in the newspaper that I write a weekly column for, looking for trainee news reporters….

….I wrote back in July, before the Big Open House Sale:

“This morning, small boy had one of the last Weetabix, mashed with water, with a glass of tap water to wash it down with. ‘Where’s Mummys breakfast?’ he asks, big blue eyes and two year old concern. I tell him I’m not hungry, but the rumblings of my stomach call me a liar. But these are the things that we do…. Poverty isn’t just having no heating, or not quite enough food, or unplugging your fridge and turning your hot water off. Poverty is the sinking feeling when your small boy finishes his one weetabix and says ‘more mummy, bread and jam please mummy’ as you’re wondering whether to take the TV or the guitar to the pawn shop first, and how to tell him that there is no bread or jam.”

After over a year of this, of learning how to live on a food budget of £10 a week or less, I’m finally going to have a regular salary again, a desk with a mug on it, and hopefully I’ll never have to tell Small Boy that there is no bread or jam again.

February 25th, 2013 | Category: Web Stuff | Leave a comment

We’ve spotted that the County Council have their own severe weather blog. You can find it here….

Although its not been updated since Friday….

January 20th, 2013 | Category: Essex & East, Web Stuff | Comments (3)