Category: Craigleith

Building for the future: £20m investment in Western General Hospital

A £20.6 million investment from the Scottish Government has been granted to improve cancer care services for patients at the Western General Hospital.

It will fund a range of construction and refurbishment projects to Oncology wards, services and facilities at the hospital. This includes building two new Linear Accelerator (LINAC) bunkers to house specialist cancer treatment machines, improvements to patient accommodation increasing the number of ensuite single rooms and relocating the Cancer Assessment Unit.

The project forms part of a wider masterplan for the Western General Hospital to transform services, create more space, comfort and privacy and provide access to modern facilities and cutting-edge equipment. 

Jim Crombie, Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Lothian, said: “This Scottish Government funding marks a key milestone in an ambitious programme of investment to ensure the Western General hospital continues to provide high quality treatment and services into the future.

“It will greatly enhance the hospital as a centre of excellence and help us work towards our longer-term vision of opening a new Regional Specialist Cancer Centre.”

Additional projects currently being funded by other capital investments at the Western General include the modernisation of Haematology inpatient services and construction of a new outpatient facility, funded by an exceptional and incredibly generous charitable donation of circa £12 million.

A £1 million investment will create new facilities to expand the Clinical Trials footprint and a £6.2 million Renal Dialysis facility is also being constructed which will offer improved clinical areas and better clinical team facilities.

These projects are supported by a programme of ongoing infrastructure improvements and upgrades in and around the hospital to enable the construction and refurbishment works.

Chris Stirling, Site Director at the Western General Hospital added: “This work will greatly enhance the care, services and environment at the Western General. We are committed to the long-term future of the Western General and ensuring we provide staff and patients with the clinical space and services they deserve. 

“We are grateful to everyone who has supported the projects so far and to our neighbours and the community for their patience and understanding whilst work progresses.”

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “The Scottish Government is pleased to be supporting improved cancer facilities at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. It is a mark of improved population health that more of us are living longer overall, however this also means the incidence of cancer is rising.

“Improved treatments also mean more of us live longer with cancer as a chronic condition. It is therefore vital our NHS facilities keep pace with demand and offer the best environment possible for people with cancer and those who treat and care for them.”

Work across the projects is expected to be completed over the next three years, finishing in 2022.

Lothian MSP, Miles Briggs said: “This much needed investment at the Western General Hospital is welcome news and the improvement of cancer care service is crucial for the South East of Scotland.

“Cancer care has been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and getting services fully resumed is critical for patients who are diagnosed with cancer.

“Ultimately a new Cancer centre, based at the Western General, will be needed going forward. This funding, which I have previously called for, will significantly improve cancer services until the new centre is built.

“I have called on SNP Ministers to update Parliament on plans for a new build Edinburgh Cancer Centre.”

Mental Health and Wellbeing Support in North Edinburgh

Local organisations have put together a booklet listing mental health & wellbeing support services in North Edinburgh (see below).

If you need support call the new Community Wellbeing Helpline on 0131 332 8773.

Shoppers encouraged to support local businesses as shops reopen

The public are being encouraged to shop local as retail businesses across the country prepare to re-open this morning.

Under the move to phase two of the Scottish Government’s route map out of lockdown street-access retail can now re-open once guidance is implemented.

Today also marks the easing of restrictions on housing moves, outdoor markets, the construction sector, factories, warehouses and labs and research facilities.

Retail is an essential part of Scotland’s communities and is one of the country’s largest employers.

The re-opening is underpinned by a new Scottish Government campaign to ensure shopping is safe.

The national campaign, which includes posters for retailers, encourages the public to enjoy shopping again as they safely support businesses in their local area.

It asks shoppers to pay attention to signs, guidance and instructions from shop staff, to shop outside of peak hours and to follow current health guidance. This includes the wearing of face coverings.

Economy Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “The progress made in tackling COVID-19 because of compliance of the public with lockdown rules means we are now in a position to ease some restrictions.

“Shops with street access in high streets across the country will be re-opening from today in a significant step towards the recovery of our economy, which has been very severely hit by coronavirus.

“High street retailers have shown huge resilience since the start of lockdown and the work they have done to safely prepare for re-opening, with close engagement between industry and trade unions, has been very welcome.

“As the high street re-opens we are making it clear shoppers are welcome back to their local high street as long as they shop safely and observe key safety messages such as the wearing of face coverings.”

Scotland Policy Chair for the Federation of Small Businesses Andrew McRae, said: “We all have a part to play in breathing life back into our high streets and town centres.  Local independent retailers have had a very long, tough few months and they need the public’s support now more than ever.

“We know that money spent locally stays in the local community – and local communities can’t recover unless local economies do so too.”

David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said: “The last fourteen weeks have been very challenging for retailers. Lockdown has forced them to rely on their limited reserves of cash and short term financial support, including the Scottish Government’s grants and rates relief, to survive.

“Being able to reopen today is a chance for those businesses to recover, and hopefully thrive.

“In preparation shop owners have put in an immense effort to take every step possible to be ready to safely open and our hope is customers will come out and support their local town centre and high street.”

Sainsbury’s Update

I’m writing to you today to update you on the range of ways we are helping to get food and essential items to those who need them most (writes Sainsburys Chief Executive MIKE COUPE).

We continue to prioritise elderly and vulnerable customers for online delivery and have offered over 725,000 elderly and vulnerable people access to slots so far. We identified 450,000 of these customers based on our own data and from customers registering with us.

We have also been able to match over 275,000 additional customers in England, Scotland and Wales based on government data and we are contacting these customers to arrange priority home delivery.

We will be in touch with more customers based on the database we receive from Northern Ireland as soon as we can. For vulnerable customers who have been offered a slot and are unable to place their order online, we offer a telephone ordering service and we now have five times the number of colleagues on hand to help with this.

As we do our best to keep our colleagues and our customers safe, we have had to temporarily change some of our processes.

To help our colleagues socially distance, we are no longer asking them to accept unwanted substitutions or to process refunds on your doorstep. If you do not want the substitutions, then you need to call us to let us know and we will process the refund for you.

This is only temporary and we are working on a digital process to make this quicker and smoother. I apologise for the inconvenience in the meantime and I’ll write again to let you know when the new process is up and running.

As I’m sure you can appreciate, our online home delivery and click & collect services are in more demand than ever before.

We are increasing our capacity as much and as quickly as we can and by the end of the month we aim to offer 600,000 online slots per week. We are doing our best to add more slots and will keep going with this but it’s important that I highlight that there is far more demand for these slots at the moment than we can ever satisfy. I have therefore included below a full list of other ways to access food and other essential items.

We are doing our best to reduce queuing times both inside and outside our stores.

To help with this, we have been extending our opening hours. By Monday the vast majority of our supermarkets will be open from 08.00-22.00. We are installing perspex safety screens in our petrol filling station stores and these will start to re-open from next week.

We are also extending opening hours in many Convenience stores to 10pm or 11pm. You can check the latest opening hours in your area before shopping here.

To help with queuing inside stores, we are installing additional protective screens between manned checkouts.

These screens will help keep our colleagues and customers safe and will mean we can open far more manned checkouts in the stores that have them. We are installing them in over 150 stores over the next week or two and I will keep you updated on this and other steps we are taking to help make your shopping trip quicker and easier.

For elderly and vulnerable customers, we offer dedicated shopping hours between 08.00 and 09.00 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And NHS and social care workers can shop in our supermarkets from 07.30 to 08.00 Monday to Saturday before they open.

We have also extended our partnership with WHSmith to provide easy access to food for NHS workers in 80 hospitals across the UK at a discounted rate.

We know that many of you are already shopping for friends, family and neighbours and we are very grateful to you for providing this community service. I mentioned in my last letter that we were launching a Volunteer Shopping Card to make it easier for people to shop for others and I am pleased to let you know that these are now available online.

For customers who are struggling to leave the house to get to the shops, we have also expanded our on-demand delivery service ChopChop to London zones 1 and 2. The service allows you to choose up to 20 of 400 grocery and essential items for home delivery within an hour. We’re looking at how we can bring this service to more people in more places across the country and I will keep you updated on progress.

Many of you have also written to ask me what additional steps we are taking to support the most vulnerable in our communities.

In addition to donating £3 million in cash to Fareshare to help to distribute food to food banks and other vulnerable communities across the UK, we are also supporting the government’s free school meal vouchers scheme, ensuring that children who qualify for free school meals can continue to access free meals while schools are closed.

Many of you are also helping us to make a real difference to communities across the UK by buying a copy of The Big Issue in stores and online. We are also supporting Comic Relief and the BBC on The Big Night In, which is raising money for people impacted by COVID-19. I hope lots of you will be able to join me in tuning in this Thursday at 7pm and donating in a range of ways if you can.

I know that most of you really appreciate the essential role that our colleagues are playing at the moment to keep the nation fed.

Our colleagues are working in really challenging circumstances, constantly trying to balance the need to serve our customers well, to keep shelves stocked and to help people get in and out of shops as quickly as possible.

We are also asking them to help us keep you safe. Unfortunately this means they will ask you to queue outside shops when they are busy. Please help us to make our colleagues’ jobs easier by showing them kindness and respect at all times.

Best wishes

Mike

Western General parking warning

Building work underway at the Western General Hospital will enhance the care and treatment of patients by providing high quality services in improved physical environments.

These are exciting times for the Western General’s patients and staff, but they also pose challenges, such as reduced on-site parking. We will continue to do all we can to keep disruption on the WGH site to a minimum.   Continue reading Western General parking warning

Gas works to bring months of disruption to Blackhall and Craigleith

SGN Network Upgrade – Possible Disruption Queensferry Road  

https://www.sgn.co.uk/

SGN: Our work will start on Monday 16 September and last for approximately 13 weeks. 8am-4pm for traffic contra-flows.

Close the following roads to ensure everyone’s safety:

Orchard Road and Orchard Road South junction with Queensferry Road
Belford Avenue junction with Queensferry Terrace
Queensferry Terrace junction with Queensferry Road

Parking suspensions:

Full width of Queensferry Road between Queensferry Terrace and Orchard Road

Signed local diversion routes will be in place for motorists, commuters and access for local residents and businesses will be maintained where possible. We’ll also need to use temporary traffic lights during various stages of the project. These will be manually controlled during peak times to minimise disruption as much as possible.

Phases of this project have been planned to coincide with the autumn school holidays, and when traffic is likely to be quieter, ensuring disruption is kept to a minimum.

We’ll be working Monday to Friday between 8am – 4pm, and at weekends where required. We know that this is a busy area and wish to assure you that work will progress as quickly as possible and we’ll be doing everything we can to limit delays and disruption.

We will post regular updates on our website https://www.sgn.co.uk/our-gas-works/roadworks-your-area and using social media and traffic bulletins to keep everyone informed.

Please feel free to share this information with your stakeholders, colleagues and anyone else who may be impacted by our work. All local residents have been notified.

If you have any specific enquiries about this project, please call us on 0131 469 1728 during office hours (8am to 4.00pm) or 0800 912 1700 and our customer service team will be happy to help.

SGN used to be known as Scotland Gas Networks and Southern Gas Networks, but following a rebrand in 2014 is now just SGN.

Have your say on the future of the Botanic Gardens

Whether you love the Botanic Gardens or have never visited before, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh would love to hear from you!

They’re looking to speak to local residents to hear what you think about the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and chat about ideas for new opportunities which could take place as a result of the Edinburgh Biomes project. Continue reading Have your say on the future of the Botanic Gardens

Kick off the new Bake Off season with free workshops from Home Store + More

As Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off gears up for another tense ten weeks in the tent, Home Store + More’s Craigleith store is hosting a series of FREE family friendly Bake Off-style workshops on Saturday 31st August. Continue reading Kick off the new Bake Off season with free workshops from Home Store + More