Rough sleeper gives birth to twins outside wealthiest Cambridge college

At least our people don`t put little babes down the toilet to drown in filth. Maybe you can do some prevention work in china gagajo

‘Our people’ ?

our good kind people who always but always rush to help someone in distress

I don't think was any sign of a partner about. There is such a thing as being responsible for your own actions. I trust you have opened your house to many homeless in your time Garajo. Young people born and bred here working many hours a week cannot afford homes, waiting years before they can consider bringing a child into the world. This country cannot house everyone that doesn't have our standard of living as sad as it seems. Many here find it hard just surviving.

"our people". ?! Read the newspapers daily and you can't fail to find reports of parents who have neglected, tortured and abused their babies and small children, many of whom died.

Urmstongran - good to hear you got an appointment today. We took the difficult decision to move surgery after 50 years with this practice. The long standing GP's are our age so as they retired the practice couldn't recruit because of the shortage of GP's. The result was a triage system, tell the receptionist, a prescribing nurse would call you back, you explain again and if urgent you'd see a prescribing nurse that day. The nurse would pop out and consult with a doctor if necessary, which it was for me as she'd never heard of the meds I take that reduce my immune system.
To see a doctor, for anything you would wait 4 weeks. This is in an area of low deprivation but we are an older age group and the practice covers an area of high deprivation a couple of miles away.

Our new practice is under much less pressure and it's possible to see a doctor the same day if its urgent.

I don't know where you read that bingo12 but it doesn't sound true or very likely.

Regarding the comparison between the NHS and Spanish healthcare, Spanish hospitals do not provide translators for foreign nationals who have rudimentary or virtually no Spanish, the onus is on them to be accompanied by a Spanish speaker. The NHS on the other hand provides interpreters for a myriad of languages at significant cost.

Ah! Just found the scaremongering article in the Express, which claims 50% of NHS income is spent on medical negligence.

Wrong!

The true figure is about 1.5%, although it's rising because some claims are getting bigger.

The 50% claim comes from future liabilities. The NHS is already committed to paying out medical negligence claims worth approximately 50% of the NHS budget. However, these won't be paid out as a lump sum, but will be spread out over the lifetime of the claimants, which in most cases will be decades.

Thank you for the post, Gagajo. It was worth reporting in full.

It is a mistake just to say that she will get NHS care. I doubt anyone thought she wouldn't. What is more important is what led to her living on the streets.

It is easy and simplistic to blame the victims of these circumstances but that still begs the question of just what sort of country we live in. With the 5th largest economy in the world, but one that comes in 26th when you look at GDP per person how and why did someone, at this stage of labour, ends up without being adequately housed.

I'm not sure why this thread has turned into a discussion about the NHS. The lady in question is still in the Rosie (the maternity unity of Addenbrookes) with her babies, according the local paper. I'm sure they're all receiving good care, although Addenbrookes and the Rosie were briefly placed in special measures a few years ago. The report highlighted “ongoing capacity issues within maternity services” at the Rosie.

No details have been released about who the lady is or why she was homeless, nor how long she has been living on the streets.

The city of Cambridge does have an increasing problem with homelessness (sofa surfing as well as street living) because it has a very unequal population in terms of wealth. Property prices are soaring, while there are still some very poor areas and many low paid jobs. The original story came from the local paper, which has been campaigning on homelessness for ages.

It pays to shop around Iam64. GP’s in this country earn a lot of money so many are happy to work part time (I am friends with two who do just that). Fair enough. But it puts pressure on the service. Some practices are run better/fare better than others.

A surgery with part-time GPs still covers the same number of shifts. What it means is that the doctors are less exhausted.

The difference between surgeries' incomes depends on what kind of patients they have. The funding formula pays out different amounts for different kinds of patients. A surgery with younger, fitter patients receives less but has a lot less demand placed on it. The amount paid for older patients with chronic illnesses and those in poorer areas isn't enough for ongoing needs and more frequent appointments.

The formula is in the process of being changed again. I don't know all the details, but single practices in rural areas and those with less healthy patients are apparently going to struggle even more.

PS. This has nothing to do with Cambridge or the homeless lady.

The problem with part time GPs is you're less likely to get in with a doctor who knows your history.

My long term GP left last year.

I have a chronic health problem and am a more frequent user than most

I've yet to see the same doctor twice. I've met subs fabulous ones. Especially locums and young doctors

But it was better when I was able to see the same doctor who knew my history well

And that had nothing to do with the OP

I trust the woman and children are doing well.

Whilst few would disagree that homelessness, for any reason, is a tragedy for anyone, and especially a young pregnant woman, we don't know know this particular woman's personal, individual story; drug addiction, mental health issues, debt problems, breakdown of relationships etc. As difficult as it may be for some of us to understand, some homeless people just do not want to accept accommodation in temporary hostels because they cannot use drugs or alcohol there and would prefer to remain on the streets. The homelessness problem isn't just confined to the UK; it's a huge problem across the whole of Europe. Whilst the UK has approximately 320,000 people who are homeless, there are more than 650,000 across Germany. And in China, there are more than 2,500,000. There doesn't appear to be any quick fix solution anywhere across the world does there?

I gave up ages ago trying to see the same GP for continuity of care. It has nothing to do with them being part-time, but because they have such a high turnover of mainly salaried and registrar GPs.

I had an appointment with the practice manager because I was so cross about the appointment system. She showed me how appointments are allocated. The partners, most of whom work full-time, are rostered for the "out of hours" hub and visits to care homes. They also cover the early hours appointments at the practice. Most of the regular appointments are covered by salaried GPs and registrars on temporary contracts.

The standard waiting time for a non-urgent appointment is 3-5 weeks. The receptionists are (supposedly) trained to do triaging, but they're not medically qualified. The people who get appointments are those who make the most noise and exaggerate their symptoms. There are very few appointments left for people who might have a worrying lump, are suffering from debilitating depression, a persistent cough or permanent pain, etc - all symptoms which could be very serious, if ignored.

Meanwhile, private GP practices are springing up, all staffed by former GPs from NHS practices. They're siphoning off money from the NHS, but don't take on patients with chronic (expensive) conditions. We're heading towards are two tier system.

And that had noting to do with the OP - sorry!

I agree with you Chewbacca. Homelessness is a problem everywhere. I happen to know a bit about the specific problem in Cambridge because it's my nearest city.

There is an increasingly visible number of street sleepers and beggars. The city attracts people from the surrounding area because there are buildings, where one can sleep and a number of facilities for the homeless.

In addition, there is a huge problem with high property prices - especially rents, which means that there is massive over-occupation and sofa surfing. The Local Housing Allowance system means that people living in Cambridge are only allowed the same amount as those living in the huge fenland area to the north of the city, where there is little work. That means that people gravitate to the city for work, the public transport system is rubbish, they can't afford to live in the city but can't afford not to work there. Most of the homelessness is invisible.

People become homeless for all sorts of reasons and I'm not going to judge this case. I'm sure there will be meetings taking place at Cambridge City Housing Department in the New Year.

There has been tension in the past between some of the university students and the homeless. Some of the students are actually very generous and help with soup kitchens, etc. However, there are others whose arrogance and cruelty is breathtaking, including this one:

www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/20-cambridge-homeless-man-student-13150690

I’m not going to judge this case either and have already said this, although certain posters say my ( and other posters) are
‘Disgraceful’ even saying ‘no humanity’ for our responses.
The fact is that on GN and other social media the rule of thumb is to shoot first and ask questions later!
Anyone who is pregnant will have been seen and offered help
By the authorities if they know about the case.Mental health issue and drug taking may have a lot to do with this case, or hiding the pregnancy, we don’t know so should not judge the case in advance.
An earlier poster said that her brother froze to death in a park
Which is absolutely tragic, and I know of a similar case where a man froze to death at Christmas in a wood.Appalling cases.
What do we do as a society for some people who cannot easily be helped?Men fall through the net more than women in these cases.Do we compel them to accept help?
Building council flats to house people is the answer for some,
But what do we do for those who really can’t cope with normal life?
That’s why a cross party think tank/ investigation into homelessness is needed urgently.

Have you links which show ‘the others’ ?

Thank you for bringing us back to the actual issue Chewbacca. It is very difficult but I personally believe that the breakdown of society in this way is endemic because of the lack of insight into how easy it is for what seem like stable worlds to crumble.

As difficult as it may be for some of us to understand, some homeless people just do not want to accept accommodation in temporary hostels because they cannot use drugs or alcohol there and would prefer to remain on the streets.

Is this true? I wonder how many of us would spend a night in a hostel? I wonder how long it would be before we wanted to dull our senses to what had happened to us.

All too often things are not put in place early enough. Our services are industrial, treating people like widgets instead of individuals. Sadly, people are rarely asked "what do you need" but often given boxes to tick and then a tick-box solution is produced. This is an expensive way to run things. There are huge financial resources within our social services, NHS, etc. With all the knowledge we have, all the individualising of our society the first blame is attributed to the victim and then that same society offers a "one size fits all" solution - which often doesn't work.

There are more homeless and rough sleepers than ever before, and not enough accomodation
And i may get slated for this, but incoming immigrants here are being given properties before homeless,
I have nothoing against immigrants in general by the way, but people who have been homeless for longer than some of the immigrants should be cateed for first
I know the Government has said all councils have to take some of them, and ours has only agreed 36 families
I don't know where thee are houses vacant big enough for families.unless moving some from larger houses into smaller properties,but last year thee were not enough to go round,and when the bedroom tax came in, people just had to pay for extra rooms, because they couldn't downsize
I have no intention of moving out of mine even if there was a smaller place

It's also true that some homeless people don't want to accept accommodation in hostels because they would be surrounded by people with drug, alcohol and mental health issues.

Please don't tar them all with the same brush. Nothing is known about the background of this lady.

Immigrants are most emphatically not given priority in this area.

I don't know why who is given priority actually matters unless you are saying legal immigrants should not be housed at all blondenana.

If, as we all surely all now know is true, there is simply not enough housing and not enough of the right type that is the problem that causes a waiting list - not your place of birth.