Epsom and Ewell came together for the annual Remembrance Day service at Epsom’s Clocktower, Friday 11th November. The Mayor’s Chaplain reflected on the history of Remembrance Day. The first was held in the grounds of Buckingham Palace in 1919 when the two-minute silence was observed. In 1921 the poppy became a symbol of Remembrance. The Second World War saw the commemoration being held on a Sunday, to avoid disruption of ammunition production should the 11th of November fall in the working week. The Chaplain mentioned how the reality of today’s television coverage of wars was inuring many to the horror of war.

The service was attended by a full complement of Councillors of all parties, servicemen and boys and girls from Blenheim School and other local schools.

The full service is reprinted below.

A woman was sent home from Epsom General Hospital with a sliver of mango seed stuck in her throat, leading to an update of guidance around patients who have been eating soft foods. The 57-year-old went to Epsom hospital emergency department saying she was having trouble swallowing after eating mango pickle.
A doctor looked at her, but could not see anything obviously wrong, with the patient not drooling, still able to swallow and no foreign body visible on examination. The patient was sent home with the advice that it could be a scratch or gastritis, and told to return if she was more unwell.

A board meeting of the Epsom and St Helier hospital trust heard she then came back four days later unable to swallow at all and with a sore throat, but still nothing visible to doctors. On a slide titled “the deadly mango” in a learning from complaints presentation, board members heard how the hospital then discovered an oesophageal tear and air in her chest after a CT scan.

Documents show there was “low level of risk” given she had been eating soft food, and that sharp foreign bodies causing problems are usually only related to fish or broken bones such as in chicken, so this was not considered.
There are no guidelines either nationally or at the trust for this sort of situation.

After discussions with other hospitals, she went for surgery in Guildford, where a mango seed sliver was removed from her oesophagus and she stayed for a week on intravenous antibiotics. Luckily the patient made a full recovery, but did make a complaint against the hospital trust.

The board meeting heard that the unnamed patient had been informed of the investigation into the incident and how new guidelines had been drawn up at the trust, to look at the symptoms patients were suffering, and not just the foods they had eaten.

Dr Richard Jennings, group chief medical officer, said that from something ridiculously obscure and exotic and unlikely ever to happen again, the trust had created pragmatic and useful learning points. He added: “I was also very happy, having felt anxious reading the title, to find it was a “potentially deadly mango”.

The meeting heard that assessment of the patient was done correctly, though the investigation showed the patient probably should have been discussed with ear, nose and throat [department] if symptomatic
She also should have been told to return within 24 hours if there were no improvement.
A presentation said it was “very rare to have sharp foreign body injury following soft food and usually due to foreign bodies in them”, such as glass or plastic.
As well as new guidelines for staff, a discharge leaflet would be created for patients who were going home with this condition.

Epsom Refugee Network: WE URGENTLY NEED HELP FOR UKRAINIAN FAMILIES – Please can you take 3 minutes to watch this video to spread the word and help us find more sponsors and properties for Ukrainian refugee families.   

FINANCIAL SUPPORT :
We are very fortunate to have secured funding for some paid positions within the charity and this will make a huge difference to the support we can offer and our large team of volunteers will work alongside these paid staff. We do, however, urgently need funds for our day to day costs to support the following:

• Teaching materials and books for students.
• School accessories and equipment for newly arrived children
• Volunteer expenses like petrol and travel costs.
• Out of school activities for children to help them build confidence and make friends
• Organising social events

If you can help please can we ask you to donate any amount, large or small, via this link – or contact us for bank details if you would like to make a direct payment or set up a direct monthly debit.

VOLUNTEER NEEDS :
We are lucky to have many volunteers who give their time and talents to support others. However, with the ever increasing numbers of refugees arriving in our area, we urgently need more volunteer support.  Please click on this link to see our latest list of urgent volunteer needs.

MUSIC EVENT :
There is another Ukrainian Music Evening organised by Epsom Music on Saturday 12th November at the Epsom Methodist Church, 11 Ashley Road, KT18 5AQ where you can hear outstanding Ukrainian musicians giving the third in this series of concerts (see details here). The evening starts at 6pm with a social get together before the concert begins at 7pm. Everybody is welcome and entry is free – and we would encourage people to bring some food to share.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Jo and Nina 
Epsom & Ewell Refugee Network

Surrey Trading Standards with Buckingham have donated 1,760 items and over £550 for the Epsom & Ewell Foodbank. The items donated include food, household cleaning supplies, personal care items and cash.
The donations are in celebration of Buckinghamshire and Surrey Trading Standards reaching the milestone of 150 Primary Authority Partnerships, making it the largest regulatory provider of Primary Authority services.

Image: Jonathan Lees of Epsom and Ewell Foodbank

Primary Authority is a means for businesses to receive assured and tailored advice in meeting various regulations through a single point of contact. This is invaluable for start-up businesses to get it right from the outset and enables all businesses to invest with confidence in products, practices, and procedures.

The landmark achievement comes off the back of Buckinghamshire and Surrey Trading Standards also winning the “Service Excellence Award” at the BEIS Regulatory Awards 2022.

Michele Manson, Business Team Manager at Buckinghamshire & Surrey Trading Standards said: “We’re delighted that we and our partners have been able to collate so many donations for Epsom & Ewell foodbanks. The work they do is so vital and it’s great that we have been able to aid them like this. We were determined to celebrate our recent achievements in a meaningful way that supported our local communities, and this has been the perfect way to do that.”

Jonathan Lees, Managing Director and Founder of Epsom and Ewell Foodbank said: “It’s great that Bucks & Surrey trading standards have worked with their business partners to make this donation, cooperation like this helps us to continue to provide vital emergency support to people in the local community.”

James Lowman, Chief Executive Association of Convenience Stores said: “Entering our partnership with Bucks & Surrey Trading Standards was one of the best decisions we have made, and it has continued to deliver every year. The quality of support from the team, has been consistently professional, pragmatic, and engaged. This has helped us to tackle new and existing compliance challenges with confidence.”

Business partners who have helped contribute donations include:
• Green Motion Car and Van Rental
• Delphic HSE Ltd.
• Natural Instinct Limited
• Coca Cola Europacific Partners
• Global Manuka UK
• E Scooter Professional LTD
• Solution EU Limited
• Bahlsen LLP
• Sports Supplement Ltd
• Creative Nature

For more information on Primary Authority Partnerships, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/primary-authority-overview
For more information on Epsom & Ewell foodbank please visit: https://epsomewell.foodbank.org.uk/

Surrey County Council News

Age Concern Epsom and Ewell are fortunate to have many volunteers that give up their time to help provide various services to support members of the older community in the borough of Epsom and Ewell. One of these services is its well used transport service which takes clients to medical appointments across the borough and further field. To provide this service, they have a wonderful small team of volunteers who carry out around 1000 trips a year.

Stuart Kendrick (L) and Alan Carlson (R) and Mayor Clive Woodbridge celebrate long-service

Two of these drivers, Alan Carlson and Stuart Kendrick have each been driving for us for over ten years, and this month they will both have reached an amazing milestone of completing 2000 drives.

Alan, a retired special needs teacher, and previous mayor of Epsom and Ewell in 2001/2002, has lived in the borough most of his life. He started driving for Age Concern Epsom and Ewell in 2012, he’d not long retired and wanted to do something useful with his time and his large car! He appreciates that the transport service can help take away the anxiety that some clients feel and aims to provide calm reassurance when driving our clients to their appointments. He really enjoys meeting people and hearing their interesting stories and he’s been able to build up good relationships with many of them.

Stuart, a retired minicab driver, originally from South London started driving for Age Concern Epsom and Ewell following his retirement because his wife suggested he might like to go and do something useful! He really enjoys meeting our clients and gets a sense of fulfilment knowing that he is doing something that they really appreciate. His wife now often accompanies Stuart on his drives, and they all love the chats that they have on the way to appointments.

Age Concern is extremely grateful to all their volunteers but would especially like to thank Stuart and Alan for completing 2000 drives for Age Concern Epsom and Ewell and on 24th October held an informal lunch party for them with invited guests.

If you would like more details about the Age Concern Epsom and Ewell Transport Service, please contact Transport Desk, Monday – Friday 9.00am – 12.30pm on 01372 732 456.

Alternatively, if you would like to like to volunteer for Age Concern Epsom and Ewell, please contact Jane Hodgson, Volunteer Coordinator Monday – Wednesday 9.00am – 3.00pm on 01372 732 458 for an informal chat.

Epsom Refugee Network welcomes the promised increase in cash to those local residents who take into their homes individuals and families who have had to flee Ukraine. It is hoped the extra money will attract more hosts in an increasingly difficult situation. Jo Sherring, leader of the Epsom Refugee Network, told Epsom and Ewell Times: “As we launch an appeal for new sponsors in the area, we welcome the news of the increased thank you payments which we hope may encourage more families to consider offering a place of safety to a family fleeing Ukraine.  We are also desperate to find sponsors for families who are already in the UK and are having to move on from their first sponsor and find a new host family. If you are thinking of hosting and have questions please, please get in touch”. www.epsomrefugeenetwork.org 

Surrey County Council and local district and borough councils who are managing the “Homes for Ukraine” scheme locally have agreed an additional thank you payment, to be paid monthly to host families from end of November 2022 to March 2023.  This is acknowledging that the financial circumstances faced by host families in Surrey, who welcomed Ukrainians into their homes, will have changed from the time they agreed to host Ukrainian families to our current economic situation in the UK.

Currently, host families are paid £350 a month for being sponsors, this payment will be increased by £250 to £600 a month from end of November 2022.  This is to compensate for the rise in energy, food and fuel bills in this cost-of-living crisis. This applies to existing hosts who are already in receipt of thank you payments, and new hosts who complete all the checks satisfactorily going forward. This funding comes from DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) via the County Council to the district and borough councils to pay the sponsors directly once they have passed all the relevant housing, DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) and safeguarding checks.

Surrey County Council leader Cllr Tim Oliver said “We are forever grateful for the unerring warm welcome and support that communities, charities, and district and boroughs continue to offer our Ukrainian guests here in Surrey. But in particular to those sponsor families who have opened their homes up to welcome Ukrainian families to live alongside them and their families. As if this sacrifice were not enough, we now need to ensure that they are not being penalised financially and can continue to offer support as sponsors in this current economic climate. Unfortunately, the conflict in Ukraine continues and so there is still a need for host families. SCC has taken the decision to increase the thank you payments after fears many people wouldn’t be able to afford to extend their current six-month agreements as winter approaches and the cost-of-living bites.”

Additional reporting from Surrey County Council news.

An NHS chief executive has never in her career seen employee relations cases of the “volume and a complexity” as at her current troubled ambulance trust. South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb), the NHS trust which covers Surrey, is on an improvement journey, after an “inadequate” rating for how the service was led in June and a report this week which downgraded its overall rating.

The trust’s interim chief executive, Siobhan Melia, said though she was not happy with the pace of the progress on improving the culture at the trust, she understood why it was not moving quickly. She told a board meeting on Thursday (October 27): “I have never in my career seen a volume and a complexity of [employee relations] cases that we are dealing with.” She said she understood why limited staff resources and an “incredibly high case load” were contributing to this.

The meeting heard what progress was being made against two warnings given in the June report, which found a culture of “bullying, harassment and sexualised behaviour” at the trust.

A report published this week by the Care Quality Commission downgraded the trust’s overall rating, finding that staff were “burnt out”, working beyond their hours and not always getting breaks. But the area of “caring” was given a “good” rating in the latest report, with patients found to be treated with kindness and compassion.

Thursday’s meeting focused on the two warning areas of four highlighted in the June report, namely risk, clinical governance and quality improvement, and of a culture of bullying. The latest report will be addressed at future board meetings of the ambulance trust, which covers Surrey, Kent, Sussex and parts of Hampshire.

According to meeting documents, the trust’s planned outcome for concerns around culture centred on a “significant reduction in bullying and harassment”, and staff feeling empowered and supported to raise concerns.
The interim chief executive said there needed to be “absolute clarity” on there being zero tolerance on behaviours that did not align with trust values, and a “decisive position” taken that sexually inappropriate behaviour would not be tolerated.

She said the backlog of cases meant people were getting “frustrated” at the length of processes because the trust was “running to catch up”. Ms Melia said she had found herself “challenged” as a woman chief executive in 2022 to have taken a sexual safety workshop in the last week. She added: “I’m listening to the lived experiences of female members of staff at SECAmb, who are talking quite openly in that workshop about some of the things that are happening. So we simply have to get more decisive, more strong in the actions that we take and continually say: ‘We will protect you as we should when you’re an employee of SECAmb’.”

Saying decisions on sanctions in proven cases needed to be “much faster”, she added that the trust needed to “deliver the actions in a much more overt way” to match words and communications that were being put out.

The trust’s executive director of human resources and organisational development, Ali Mohammed, said that 25 per cent of employee relations cases involved bullying, harassment or sexual safety.

He said once the initial work had been done on meeting targets set out after the CQC report and clearing the backlog of cases, more of a “learning culture” needed to be brought in at the trust. But he said ultimately it would be the staff that would be able to tell leaders if things had changed for the better. He said: “Are we winning in terms of people feeling that there’s a different culture within the organisation? That’s the key thing in the end, asking the individuals themselves because they are the best judge of it.” He said there was an “individual and collective responsibility” on all board members, managers and “every single individual within the organisation” to push the same message and the same culture. He added: “This isn’t something one person could do in isolation. I think it’s a test we should hold ourselves to as a board, and as a senior management community, that it is something that we personally will be pushing forward.”

The board’s chairman David Astley said the trust needed to “root out” inappropriate behaviour. He said all staff needed to feel confident and safe at work, whether on the front line or in other areas. Mr Astley added: “They’ve got to feel safe, so they can do the best job they can for their colleagues, and more importantly, the patients.”

A £40 million project to improve education facilities for some of Surrey’s most vulnerable children has moved to its next stage. Surrey County Council is currently not providing enough spaces in its “alternative provision” schools, which cater for children who have been excluded from mainstream schools or have additional educational needs. [Ed. SEND = special educational needs and disability.]
The current facilities are also described by the council as in “extremely poor” and “dilapidated condition”.
It is hoped that being able to provide places in council-run facilities will unlock more than £1m a year because the cost of a place with private providers is around £30,000 more per year than in an authority setting.
A meeting of Surrey County Council’s cabinet on Tuesday (October 25) heard from the authority’s cabinet member for education and learning that the new and redeveloped sites would be “first class”.
Councillor Clare Curran (Conservative, Bookham and Fetcham West) outlined plans for sites across Surrey which would be redeveloped, demolished or built from scratch to aim to increase the authority’s capacity.
Currently, according to council documents, the authority can only provide 196 spaces, out of a total of 240 that are required by law.
Legally, the county council must secure suitable, full-time alternative education for children who, because of reasons including illness or exclusion, would not be in education unless it was arranged for them.
It must also make sure there is provision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) who have Education, Health, and Care Plans in place.
Alternative provision is often a short-term solution until a child can return to mainstream education or move to a dedicated school, but in some cases is a longer-term solution.
Cllr Curran said the new sites would provide an environment where children would feel valued, could access high quality curriculum and get the emotional, health and well-being support they needed.
She said: “These short-stay schools can include some of the most vulnerable and marginalised children and young people that are in the county. We really want to ensure that we’re providing them not only with first-class accommodation, but a first-class learning experience.”
The plans, which would add 44 alternative provision places, include new sites in Elmbridge, on a council-owned site at Thamesfield Farm North, in either Surrey Heath or Runnymede and a new school on a new site for Reigate Valley College.
There are also plans to demolish the current Fordway School in Spelthorne, with the school relocating temporarily to Wey Valley College in Guildford while a new school is built, and plans to requires remodel and expand the Wey Valley College site.
The targets for the school sites are autumn and winter 2024.
An officers’ report said: “The current assets are in extremely poor condition and lack capacity to provide adequate places in appropriate locations across the county. Existing accommodation across the current nine buildings is significantly undersized and the buildings are in a dilapidated condition which is likely to render them unusable within the next two years. As such, the existing accommodation does not enable the provision of a full statutory educational offer that meets the educational needs of Surrey’s most  vulnerable learners.”
Cabinet members approved the £43.2m budget for the project, which should also generate £5.77m in capital receipts when current council land is sold off.
The officers’ report showed that the average cost of a child going to an independent facility was around £52,000 per year, compared to £22,000 per year for a place at a maintained specialist school.
The additional places in council-run schools would mean a difference of £1.32m a year to the council’s budget.

Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell has teamed up with the Rotary Clubs of Epsom and Ewell to bring Project Wenceslas to the Borough for the sixth year running. Project Wenceslas enables those who receive, but do not need, the Government’s Winter Fuel Payment to donate it to either Rotary Club of Epsom or Rotary Club of Ewell. This money will be distributed to people in critical need of assistance with energy bills, much needed during the Cost of Living crisis. All monies donated are redistributed 100% without any deductions for costs or expenses.

If you would like to know more about donating your Winter Fuel Payment, please contact Epsom Rotary via their website or Ewell Rotary via their website and search for Project Wenceslas.

If you are struggling with fuel bills, then contact Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell on 0808 278 7963 (Mon-Fri, 10am – 4pm) or see the CAB website : www.caee.org.uk

Surrey County Council launches Surrey Skills Plan at Skills Summit November 10. A landmark event in Surrey next month will bring together education providers and businesses in a bid to turbo charge Surrey’s local economy.

The Surrey Skills Summit at Sandown Racecourse on 10 November will give leading local businesses the opportunity to outline what skills they need in the years to come. Education providers including colleges and universities will be on hand to discuss tailoring vocational offers and training, with a view to developing Surrey’s workforce of the future.

The event will also launch the Surrey Skills Plan, including recommendations and actions to help deliver the skills, jobs and opportunities for Surrey’s economy to thrive.

The Summit will also include:
 Presentations from experts on the national skills landscape, including developments and their implications for Surrey businesses and training providers.
 Case studies from Surrey businesses who have taken creative approaches to meeting their recruitment, retention and skills needs
 The chance for businesses to have their voice heard to help build a world class skills system in Surrey that meets the needs of all businesses and residents.

Learn more and register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/surrey-skills-summit-tickets-
415842374737

Matt Furniss, Surrey County Council Cabinet Member for Transport, Infrastructure and Growth, said:
“Surrey has the UK’s second largest GDP after London and for decades has been a natural home for companies from across the world. As competition for talent becomes tougher and skills shortages become more pronounced, it’s essential for Surrey to become more proactive in planning for the future. The Skills Plan and events like the Skills Summit are essential for growing a sustainable economy for Surrey. We need to come together to provide the right conditions for business to thrive, delivering skills, jobs and opportunity for all.”

Surrey County Council News

To Dorking Halls next month, for its first live performances in three years. The live show has been performed in front of 190,000 young people between the ages of 16-19 since its inception in 2005 and is an emotionally engaging and thought-provoking education production, coordinated by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service.

Working with the other emergency services, the event aims to raise road safety awareness amongst young people and positively influence their attitudes to driving as well as their role as a passenger in cars.

The performance has been designed to engage an audience of young learner and novice young drivers, a group that is at higher risk of collisions, injury and death on the UK’s roads and aims to make young people aware of their responsibilities as road users and the wide ranging and potentially devastating consequences should these not be taken seriously. The ultimate aim is to reduce the number of road traffic collisions involving young people and the number of deaths and injuries amongst this at-risk driver group.

The performances comprise a series of films featuring people recalling true stories and real-life impacts of road traffic collisions. Between each of these films, speakers, including personnel from the emergency services and members of the public personally affected by a road death, recount their own experiences.

Over the last 17 years, 285 performances have been held, with, this year, 70 different schools, colleges, youth groups and even army bases from across the county attending. In the past two years, Coronavirus restrictions forced the event to be staged online, where an estimated 28,000 young people tuned in.

This year, Safe Drive Stay Alive are offering free tickets to the public performance on Wednesday 9 November, providing an opportunity to witness this impactful performance for yourself. Spaces are limited, so secure your today by visiting: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/safe-drive-stay-alive-tickets-430812460667

The event has been supported by organisations including the Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Surrey, Surrey RoadSafe, Toyota GB, esure and Sheilas’ Wheels, Ringway, Surrey Educational Trust (SCC), as well as the High Sheriff of Surrey, the Safer Guildford Partnership and Safer Surrey Heath. Additional funding is provided by a large number of town and parish councils across Surrey. This funding allows the event to be put on free of charge, and cover venue hire and transportation costs for attendees to and from the venue. To find out more about Safe Drive Stay Alive, please visit: https://safedrivesurrey.org/

Surrey County Council News

Surrey County Council must work closely with independent care providers to meet the challenges facing social care and continue to improve choice for residents, Surrey’s new director of adult social care has said.

In her first keynote speech to Surrey’s care sector, Liz Bruce embraced the need for a new working relationship between the council and providers of residential, nursing and home-based care to help build for the future of social care including planning for the biggest care reforms in decades.

As well as preparing for the reforms – which are set to usher in a lifetime limit on care costs of £86,000 – the care sector in Surrey is operating in an “unprecedented” economic environment and dealing with recruitment pressures and the impact of Covid-19, Mrs Bruce said.

Addressing the Surrey Care Association’s autumn conference in Dorking, Mrs Bruce said new relationships and “new thinking” would enable the council and providers, along with their NHS partners, to move “together ahead”. 

Forging a closer relationship would enable the partners to better shape services around the needs of residents and communities and enhance the choice of care and support options available.

Earlier this year, Mrs Bruce became Joint Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Integrated Commissioning working across Surrey County Council and Surrey Heartlands integrated care system.

She told the conference: “We need each other more now than ever. We’re stronger together and we’ve got more in common together – we mustn’t let people divide us. We’re far more powerful and influential to central government if we’re saying the same things.

“How we work together going forward is all based on relationships. We need to innovate together and to do that we’ve got to have a good relationship and have dialogue. None of us can do what we’re trying to do on our own so we need to come together and work in partnership. I’m optimistic we can do that.”

Areas where there are opportunities to work together include on shared issues such as workforce and training. A key focus for adult social care is supporting providers and residents with better information, advice and guidance to help the make informed life choices, especially when considering or requiring care.

The county council’s commissioning strategy for older people, covering the period until 2030 and drawing on input from providers and the NHS as well as residents and staff, aims to champion greater choice, quality and control for residents.

As well as supporting people to lead independent and active lives in their own homes and communities for as long as possible, the blueprint spells out how the council and partners will work together on ensuring intensive and personalised care options for people with more complex needs, in line with the council’s ambition to tackle inequalities in health so that no one in Surrey is left behind.

Mrs Bruce took up her new role in Surrey in May from the London boroughs of Richmond and Wandsworth where she was Director of Adult Social Care and Public Health. She has previously held senior positions at London’s tri-borough partnership – Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea – and at Manchester City Council and Warwickshire County Council.

Surrey County Council News

Gina Miller supported Epsom Rotary‘s fight against rising cases of Polio. Today is National Polio Day and on Saturday local Rotarians were raising awareness in Epsom’s Market Square. They raised £300 from the Borough’s generous public and that will be matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gina Miller with Peggy Rowell of Epsom Rotary in Epsom Market Square

With the news reporting Poliovirus has raised its ugly head, here in the UK, it is a reminder how important the Rotary International PolioPlus campaign is. Not since 1984 has there been a case of polio in the UK, which was declared polio free in 2003. Although, no cases have been detected or confirmed and the risk of someone catching polio in the UK is low, it has come as major blow to Rotary, that it has been identified, here, in the UK. The emphasis is being placed on trying to make sure that all children and unvaccinated adults have been fully immunised against the disease. This is because the poliovirus is opportunistic and will exploit gaps in population immunity.

The Rotary PolioPlus campaign was launched in 1985, becoming a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. In this time, Rotary members, working with communities around the world, have contributed more that 2.1 billion US dollars and countless volunteer hours for the fight to end polio. Now polio is considered eliminated in most first world countries with Afghanistan and Pakistan being the only countries in the world where the infection is classed as an endemic.

The fight has to continue and as Rotarians we can play a key role in raising funds and awareness to achieve a polio-free world and ensure we protect the gains Rotary has worked so hard to achieve.

Polio Outbreaks 2022

Poliovirus (Poliomyelitis) has been confirmed in non-endemic countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, India, the United Kingdom, and New York in 2022. In recent years, polio-endemic countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported polio outbreaks, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

And on September 26, 2022, the U.S. CDC issued a global Alert – Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions, regarding polio outbreaks and poliovirus detections in various countries.

On September 13, 2022, the WHO added the USA to a list of about thirty countries where circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) has been identified in 2022.This action is related to genetic sequences in July 2022 from a polio (Acute flaccid myelitis) patient in Rockland County, NY, and wastewater specimens collected in various New York counties, linked to poliovirus samples collected in Israel, and London, indicating multi-country, community transmission.

Our own correspondent

Epsom & Ewell Borough Council is installing 14 memorial benches across the Borough to commemorate all the lives lost in the Covid-19 pandemic. Metal benches have been placed at Alexandra Recreations Ground, Long Grove Park, Nonsuch Park, Shadbolt Park, Stoneleigh Broadway and The Grove in Ewell Village.

Mayor Clive Woodbridge, College Ward Councillors Julie Morris and Nigel Colin, Cllr Hannah Dalton and Elena Ciesco. Acting Borough Chief Executive Jackie King also attended.

More metal benches have been or are in the process of being installed at Auriol Park, Ewell Court Park, Mounthill Gardens and The Wells Centre. Wooden benches will also be placed at Epsom Common, Grandstand Road, Horton Country Park and Hogsmill by the steppingstones at a later date. Flowers will also be planted around the benches where appropriate.

Funding for the benches was provided via the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

Councillor Hannah Dalton, who put forward the CIL bid, said, “The past two years have been extremely hard for everyone in the Borough, but more so for those who have lost loved ones. These benches are our permanent memorial to all those affected by the pandemic. “I hope they will bring comfort to grieving families, ensuring that their loved one will always have a place in and be remembered by our community.”

Councillor John Beckett, Chair of Environment and Safe Communities Committee, added, “While these benches memorialise the pandemic, they also represent a time for reflection within the Borough. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to those we have lost, than to have something to remind us of and generations to come.”

One of the benches, for each of the Borough’s Wards, was the place of a moving speech by Mayor Clive Woodbridge on Saturday morning 22nd October. In Alexandria Park The Mayor spoke of the loss so many across the Borough have suffered during the pandemic. As of the week ending 7th October 2022 the UK Government funded LG Inform states that 474 persons have died of Co-Vid in Epsom and Ewell.

Mayor Woodbridge recognised how deep the bereavement is felt by relatives who came to the bench this day especially as he had this year suffered the loss of a son. As an example of the reality of loss he read a tribute to one Epsomian who succumbed to the virus.

“Luigi Ciesco was born in Italy in 1941 and at the age of 19 he moved to England in 1960 to start a new life. He met Vincenza his wife, at a wedding in Italy and soon after, they were married, settling first in Hook Road and then in Alexandra Road in Epsom for 45 years. They went on to have 4 children and 8 grandchildren and were married for 57 years. He was an amazing, fun loving and cheeky man, a real character and he was known and loved by so many. He loved his family, and he loved his Italian music and he loved to dance. He was an extremely hard-working man and worked in the NHS. He grew all his own vegetables and was an expert gardener and wine maker.

The Covid memorial benches mean a great deal to the bereaved families. The world seems to have moved on from Covid but they have not moved on, they are forever changed. The benches show the reality of how cruel this virus is and how it does not discriminate from young to old. We all hope that it makes people stop and think about our loved ones never to be forgotten.”