The petition I started last year with 38 Degrees to remove all plastic from tea bags succeeded in persuading the UK's largest tea bag manufacturer, Unilever/PG Tips to remove plastics from their teabags. But the other leading UK teabag manufacturers are still using plastics in their teabags. The issue of having these plastics (polypropylene) in teabags is a concern. 20-25% plastic in each teabag is not a small or insignificant amount when multiplied up by the millions and millions of tea bags consumed daily. These plastics do not biodegrade in the environment. There have been many campaigns to keep plastics and microplastics out of our seas, highlighting the harm they do to marine life. But the same is true of plastics on land as they can cause harm to birds and small mammals. We need to keep ALL plastics OUT of our environment. We know that it is possible to use other materials that are biodegradable and I am told by a major European teabag paper manufacturer that there is a “Gold Standard” of cellulose-based bags that will readily compost in your garden compost bin, which, in fact, goes a stage better than the PLA-based bags about to be employed by PG Tips and Coop. With your support, we can make the other UK teabag manufacturers remove plastic from their tea bags.

This would effect 3500 registered patients who will now have to find an alternative Surgrey. Potter Street has the largest elderly population in Harlow. It will not be easy for the elderly and disabled to catch buses to see a doctor. The closure of this surgery will cause more pressure on the surgery’s who will have to take on extra patients, which in tern will cause longer waiting times to see a doctor.

The Health Secretary's plans to replace the NHS with Affordable Care Organisations are unwanted by taxpayers, Doctors, Nurses & Patients. We believe The NHS should be free at the point of access and all Health & Social Care provision should be based on need, not ability to pay.

At Yarl's Wood IRC in Bedfordshire 120 inmates are currently on hunger strike on these issues and others. The poor care at Brook House IRC has been exposed on Panorama. Detainees in IRCs are among the most vulnerable people in Britain. They require our support.

Our local Nottingham hospitals, the Queens Medical Centre (QMC) and the Nottingham City Hospital (NCH), are struggling to provide patients with adequate care at acceptable standards. Waiting times at A&E are rising, there is a shortage of beds and many patients are either bed ‘blocking’ due to lack of suitable accommodation to move on to, or being discharged prematurely. The same is true of most hospitals throughout England.At the same time NUH Senior Management are demanding hard-pressed and overworked staff members make more cost-saving cuts in the care they provide. This is probably impossible without a drastic deterioration in the standard of patient care. Organised by Nottingham & Notts Keep Our NHS Public through 38 Degrees. Your personal information will be kept private and held securely. By submitting information you are agreeing to us keeping you informed about Nottingham & Notts Keep Our NHS Public campaigns. For further info please contact [email protected]

Protect the 10 overnight nursing beds at Babington hospital. Babington Hospital faces closure. This means up to 18 beds for rehabilitation, palliative and end-of-life care are being lost. The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) claim that the nursing beds will be provided at Ashbourne, Ripley and Ilkeston. This presents immense problems for people who have to travel. Furthermore there are questions about capacity and there is no guarantee that these beds will remain available. The strategy is to cut 535 beds across the county in the NHS. There has been no full, open and public consultation over the closures of Babington hospital and the loss of nursed beds. Make no mistake. These nursing beds will be lost if we do not object now. Please make your voice heard by completing the questionnaire in the link below. There is little room for expression other than using the free text box at the end to reject the Engagement Process and call for a full public consultation: http://www.southernderbyshireccg.nhs.uk/have-your-say/engagements/belper-health-services/

This young boy deserves a chance like every other 6-year old of a good life, without it being hampered and potentially cut short.

If this erroneous decision is not rescinded then it would create a two tier urgent care system that would exclude, workers, visitors and those that participate in the full range of sporting fixtures that happen in the area from accessing and using the urgent care centre: putting untold pressure on KGH A&E and the East Midlands Ambulance Service.

Over the year 2016-2017 nearly 174,000 allegations were closed and 149,450 (86%) of tip offs were incorrect allegations. Over the financial years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 332,850 cases were closed following reports by members of the public (of benefit fraud). Of these 287,950 were found to have no or little evidence to substantiate the claim (87%) We need to stop the culture of hunting out benefit fraud, as most of the time the allegations are incorrect. Going through this process has a detrimental effect on disabled and chronically ill people’s mental and physical health. We believe that if the public are to remain involved in reporting on alleged benefit fraud then they should not be allowed to do this anonymously and should have to give at least their name and national insurance number. This will help to make people think about their actions before picking up the phone, will help to reduce bogus allegations, and will make improvements to this culture of thinking people on benefits are scrounges and that disabled/chronically ill people are faking (when in fact they are probably faking being well most of the time). If someone is found to be a serial malicious reporter then they should be fined and banned from giving tip offs again. The general public have a slim view and understanding of what disability/chronic illness ‘looks like’ resulting in more reports of benefit fraud and disabled/chronically ill people being scared to leave the house for fear they’ll be reported increasing isolation in communities and fears that your neighbour is spying on your every move. Let’s stop feeding this narrative. Please help us make some positive changes to the benefits system. Together we rise! Faye Dempsey, Ellie Hicks, Alison Morton Articles of interest: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/01/spy-on-your-neighbour-britain-demonisation-benefit-claimants-disabled-people www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/benefit-fraud-public-tip-offs-legal-action-police-no-evidence-dwp-work-pensions-department-a8144096.html

Personally, I often forget to donate to food banks until I see the crate at the exit of the supermarket, and by then I'm all packed up and ready to go home. Of course, I could be more aware, and work on making it become a habit, but at the moment, I'm not very tuned in, although I'd love to be! Anyway, when I do my online grocery shop, which I am now trying to do on a more regular basis, I thought there was a significant change that could be made which would allow me to donate to food banks whilst doing the shop. For example, when I get my two tins of tuna for a discounted price, I could add one of those tins of tuna into a separate 'food bank' list. Rather than delivering these items to me, they could go straight into a food bank deposit system. Obviously it would need to be a simple user interface that doesn't get mixed up and confuse people and suddenly you receive the items you were trying to donate and the food bank receives the full order... So it could be quite difficult to do (I've got no idea, I don't work in systems!). Anyway, this is just an idea that I believe could work really well and could result in some valuable relationships between supermarkets and those in need.

We need answers from all parties involved. The school is a big part of our community.

I signed up to make my GP surgery, the new NHS pilot called GP at Hand. There are adverts for the service all over the tube. As a woman over 25, we need smear tests to prevent cervical cancer. It's a 10 minute test that GP practices offer, often administered by a nurse. 'GP at Hand' only have one nurse for smear tests in the whole of London. They're based in far west London (Fulham), more than an hours' journey for most of us registered on the service. It's outrageous that NHS England have given them a contract when their provision for women is dangerously low. Just last week a woman died from cervical cancer when she was 36 having never had a smear test. Around 3,000 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year in the UK and the simple 10-minute test could save lives. A GP service only offering this service a 2 hour journey away is insane. Please sign the petition demanding NHS England cancel the contract unless GP at Hand add more options for smear tests in London.