Thursday, December 1, 2022
NEWS Malachi a man on a mission Page 15
WALSALL EDITION
MOTORING Rallying for unlikely SUV Page 29
SPORT Carlos relishes training time Back page
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TRUSTS MISS KEY TARGETS
Key targets are being missed by hospital trusts in the Black Country, latest figures show. The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, which runs New Cross Hospital, has been ranked 105th out of 120 in England for its overall performance against key duties of care to its patients. Sandwell And West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust ranks 86th, The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust 42nd and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust 41st. The target for patients to start any type of treatment for a new primary cancer within one month (31 days) from the decision to treat is 96 per cent. But latest figures show
Report by Lisa O’Brien
the Wolverhampton trust achieved 70 per cent, Dudley 85 per cent and Sandwell 90 per cent. The Walsall trust met the target with 99 per cent. The operational standard for A&E waiting times is that 95 per cent of patients should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. The latest figure for Walsall was 71 per cent, 73 per cent at Sandwell, 77 per cent at Dudley and 80 per cent at Wolverhampton. No Black Country trust met the 90 per cent target for patients waitimg six weeks or longer for a diagnostic test. The NHS constitution sets a standard that 92 per cent of
people should wait no longer than 18 weeks from their referral to their first treatment for elective surgery. At the Dudley trust it was 65 per cent, 60 per cent at Wolverhampton, 59 per cent at Walsall and 60 per cent at Sandwell. Diane Wake, elective care lead for the Black Country Integrated Care System, said: “We know patients are waiting longer than we would like, and NHS staff are working extremely hard to address the backlogs. “Despite exceptionally high demand for services, we are making significant progress, with almost 200,000 procedures being carried out every month across the Black Country.”
Flats plan at old cinema turned down A historic building – one of the oldest surviving cinemas in the country – will not be converted into flats after plans were refused. Lodge Housing Ltd had hoped to create 21 apartments in The Imperial, on Darwall Street in Walsall. But Walsall Council planning officers rejected the application, citing
reasons including the harm it would cause to the heritage asset which dates back to the 19th century. They also raised concerns about a lack of information on noise prevention and the layout of the proposed apartments, which they said would result in a “poor standard of residential amenity”.
The Imperial was last used as a Wetherspoon pub before it closed in 2016 and it has sat empty ever since. The council’s head of planning, Alison Ives, said: “The proposed development fails to preserve or enhance the architectural or historic character of the designated Grade II former Imperial Cinema.”
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A Tory MP says the Black Country Plan “failed us all” as she warned ministers the green belt will be “lost forever” without planning reforms. Aldridge-Brownhills MP Wendy Morton said the now-collapsed plan, which earmarked land across the four boroughs for 77,000 homes, would have “decimated the green belt for executive housing”. She also claimed ministers had “failed” local areas by imposing unrealistic housing targets. The blueprint was axed after Dudley Council pulled out in a bid
to protect green belt sites around Kingswinford. Mrs Morton said: “We want to see an end to top-down housing targets, destruction of our green belt and our locally elected councillors being over-ruled by faceless bureaucrats who sit behind desks with no understanding of our local needs or agreed plans.” She said concerns she had raised over plans for 1,500 homes on land off Aldridge Road were ignored, while questions over school places, GP surgeries and infrastructure had not been addressed.
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MP Wendy Morton at a green belt site on Chester Road in Walsall
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