Chairman's announcements
Minutes:
(a) Incident at County Hall
The Leader referred to an unfortunate incident that had occurred at County Hall on the previous day. The body of a 42 year old man from Trowbridge was discovered in the front car park of the County Hall.
According to Police there were no suspicious circumstances and the coroner had been informed.
She added that once the man was formally identified she would on behalf of the Council, send a letter of condolence to the man’s family.
(b) Health Concordat
The Leader announced that the Council would be signing an informal health concordat with the Strategic Health Authority. The document would provide a statement on how well the Council would work together with its health partners.. Other authorities involved were: BANES, NHS Wiltshire Acute Hospital Trust, Wiltshire Ambulance Service and Wiltshire PCT.
(c) Dementia Conference
At the Leader’s request Councillor Thomson, Cabinet Member for Community Services, updated Cabinet on the Dementia conference held on 9 February.
Councillor Thomson said that it had been an excellent conference and extremely well attended by both health professionals and those suffering from dementia and their carers.
The conference provided in depth detail on measures which could be taken to help sufferers. Councillor Thomson sought Cabinet support to lobby the Government on the issue of blue badges. He considered that sufferers of mental illnesses and the people they relied on for transport should be afforded the same rights when it came to blue badges as those with physical illnesses. He also considered that the law should also enable the provision of blue badges for carers of children with disabilities and those with severe autism and Link drivers. In an effort to assist, this Council had provided temporary blue badges to patients recovering from operations but had been told to stop this practice.
Cabinet agreed that an open letter be written to the Government highlighting this as a national issue and to seek a change in the law. The letter would be copied to local MP’s, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and front benchers
(d) New Chief Executive – Andrew Kerr
The Leader welcomed Andrew Kerr, the recently appointed new Chief Executive, to this his first official meeting of Cabinet.