Weekly Update – Friday 4 February 2022

Fuel Poverty

The Chancellor’s response to the energy crisis isn’t enough for people across Edmonton. A buy now, pay later scheme that would reduce rising bills by a fraction doesn’t begin to touch the edges of this problem. Almost 10,000 families across Edmonton live in fuel poverty and they have to choose between eating and heating. The government’s wonga-like scheme will do nothing for them.

What we should be doing is acknowledging the elephant in the room. Privatisation of the energy sector has failed. Privatised energy companies have one goal and that’s to protect and increase their profits. This leads to inefficiency and increased costs for the consumer. It’s time we admit that this experiment has failed and bring the energy sector back into public ownership.

CQC North Mid report is deeply concerning

Today the Care Quality Commission released a damming report into the treatment of sickle cell patients at North Mid. The report makes it clear that North Middlesex Hospital have not resolved the failings that led to the tragic and avoidable death of Evan Nathan Smith. Evan was just 21 when he died. He had his entire life ahead of him. North Mid should have used the three years since his death to improve its understanding of sickle cell disease and prioritise the specialised treatment required by patients with all red blood cell disorders.

Reports from CQC that some staff did not take the disease seriously with one patient saying he was made to feel like a drug addict for requesting pain relief, bring into sharp focus the disparity in treatment and health outcomes faced by black communities in this country. This is a problem that needs to be acknowledged and tackled at the national level and not just left up to individual hospitals to resolve.

This week the health secretary met with the All-Party Parliamentary group for sickle cell and thalassemia and promised to enact a plan in response to the important No One’s Listening report. That plan must tackle the widespread poor treatment of sickle cell head on, improve training across the NHS on this issue and give hospitals like North Mid all the support they need to address the concerns raised by the CQC.

There can be no more excuses, the health secretary must keep his promise and North Mid must put whatever measures are necessary in place to prevent another tragedy from occurring.

Select-Committee Update

This week at the Public Accounts Select Committee we took evidence from a number of important witnesses on the issue of improving outcomes for women in the criminal justice system. Those we questioned included representatives from the Howard League for Penal Reform, Birmingham’s Centre for Women and the Women in Prison group.

I focused on the issue of funding for women’s centres, which the Tory Government has drastically cut over the last 12 years. Joy Doal of Birmingham’s Centre for Women emphasised how difficult it is for organisations like hers, that are often only given short term funding. That makes it hard to plan ahead in the long term which can impact outcomes for those who use her service.

African Cup of Nations

The African Cup of Nations is coming to a very exciting finish this Sunday with Senegal playing Egypt in the final. It was very disappointing to see Nigeria knocked out by Tunisia in the round of 16 after they did so well in the group stage but the team can now focus on their huge match against Ghana in March. Win those two-legs and they will qualify for the World Cup this December. Over the last few decades African teams have progressed further and further in world cups. This December I’m hopeful that Nigeria can go deep in the tournament and the big Nigerian community in the UK proud.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my latest update, if you have any issues that you would like to raise directly with me then please do email  edmontonconstituency@parliament.uk. I’m always happy to help whenever possible.

Kind regards,

Kate Osamor MP