Health and Social Care Scruntiny Committee

Last night I attended the Health and Social Care Committee (Agenda is here). Another good meeting and some interesting points raised.

I guess one important point many residents want answering is, is Wigan A and E going to close? We had the head of the Wigan Wrightington Leigh Foundation Trust. I asked the question, given the speculation out on the streets. Andrew Foster confirmed that they are in talks with how they can work with Bolton on sharing services. He informed the committee that both hospitals would keep their A & E depts. but there could be there could be sharing of other services at night, like surgery.

One agenda item that I was interested in was No 11. This was about making play areas in Wigan Smoke Free. All seemed to agree with this, including myself, however I did say the obvious would happen, which is that people would just walk round to the other side of the fence and lean on the fence smoking. This was acknowledge but it was suggested that there was little that could be done. I then proposed that we have a an area around the play area fence to stop this, which was well received. The area would not be large enough not to allow supervision of the children.

Another good point was letting children design the signage that would go in. I also suggested that the children should also be the judges too. Hopefully this will happen.

There is currently a consultation being carried out on this matter and the link for that is here .Please get involved and let's get our play areas smoke free. I know we would love these in Standish.

There was no issue with anything in the committee and maybe the full Council should come and view these meetings as it seems to be a committee that is well behaved with no animosity.