• Fern House Surgery in Witham to receive Gold in Pride in Practice (PiP) programme
• PiP trains staff in LGBT inclusivity
• Minister for Equalities praises practice for commitment to providing an excellent service to LGBT people

The programme, produced by the LGBT Foundation and funded by the Government Equalities Office, trains GPs and staff in primary care organisations to fully support LGBT patients.

PiP trains practitioners to meet the needs of their LGBT patients, from making a practice more welcoming to ensuring that patients are addressed in an appropriate way.

The Minister for Equalities, Baroness Williams, praised Fern House for completing the programme, demonstrating a real commitment to providing excellent and appropriate care to their LGBT patients.

As part of the LGBT Action Plan, in 2018 the Government Equalities Office launched a £1m health grant scheme to fund projects to ensure LGBT people get the right healthcare support, and appointed a National Adviser for LGBT health.

Minister for Equalities, Baroness Williams, said:

“It’s vital that LGBT people are able to access the healthcare that they need, and be treated with respect whilst doing so.

“I would like to congratulate Fern House on achieving the Gold Award for the Pride in Practice programme, it shows commitment to serving LGBT people in a supportive and respectful manner.”

Dr Joanne Hopcroft, Senior GP Partner at Fern House Surgery said:

“Taking part in Pride in Practice has been a really worthwhile experience for all our staff and will make a positive difference to our patients. We have all learned a great deal about LGBT+ healthcare access which helps meet our vision as a practice of giving all our patients the same level of service regardless of who they are. I would encourage any practice that has not already signed up for Pride in Practice to get involved.”

Dr Anna Davey, Clinical Chair at NHS Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group said:

“I’d like to extend my congratulations to everyone at Fern House Surgery for this excellent achievement. Here in mid Essex, we want to make sure all members of our local LGBT+ community are able to have open and honest conversations with health and care professionals, so people’s individual needs are properly identified and they get the best health support and advice.”

Cllr Peter Tattersley, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing at Braintree District Council said:

“It is so encouraging to see Fern House achieve the Pride in Practice Gold Award and lead the way in the district for providing excellent care for LGBT patients. I hope to see other surgeries across the district follow suit and ensure all residents are getting the care and support they deserve.”

The GEO has funded LGBT Foundation to deliver the Pride in Practice training to 350 primary care services, piloting the scheme in NHS GP practices, dentists, pharmacies and optometrists outside of Manchester in London and more rural areas of England.

Last week, the Royal College of GPs launched a new suit of e-learning resources, also funded by the Government Equalities Office, to support healthcare professionals to deliver the best possible care for LGBT patients.

Notes to editors:

Any surgeries wishing to enrol in the programme should get in touch via: pip@lgbt.foundation

The Pride in Practice scheme includes:

• Access to training around LGBT inclusion, which provides information on how to provide appropriate services to LGBT people, support around Sexual Orientation and Trans Status Monitoring, myth busting, and confidence building with staff around terminology and appropriate language.
• Support to deliver effective active signposting and social prescribing for LGBT communities, linking services with a range of LGBT-affirmative local community assets to facilitate holistic approaches to care.
• Ongoing support from a dedicated Account Manager providing consultancy and support on a range of topics based on the needs of the service, identified through the supported assessment.
• Community Leaders volunteers who provide insight and lived experience to ensure patient voice, influence and greater public involvement.
• LGBT patient insight so that services can be proactive about meeting LGBT patients’ needs (i.e. access to research, focus group data and case studies sharing best practice), via involvement of Community Leader volunteers who we will support to ensure increased patient and public involvement in the programme.
• Practical support, guidance and confidence building for staff members on how to implement the Sexual Orientation Monitoring Information Standard.
• An accreditation award, including a wall plaque and Pride in Practice logos for letterheads and websites. This enables primary care services to promote their equality credentials, and demonstrates their commitment to ensuring a fully inclusive, patient-centred service. Awards are graded Bronze, Silver or Gold depending on assessment results. Assessments are carried out with the support of a dedicated Account Manager.

Our military personnel are rightly valued throughout their service in HM armed forces. They make sacrifices and put themselves in danger to protect and serve our country. It is only right that we continue to show how much we value their efforts once they leave the armed forces too.

In our manifesto we promised to introduce a railcard for veterans. I am delighted to announce that we will make it available from 11 November this year (2020). This railcard will extend discounted train travel to the more than 830,000 veterans not covered by existing discounts.

We expect our service personnel to live and work all over the country, moving wherever they are needed to serve our great country. This often leads to service families, and former service families, living far away from friends and family and the communities they grew up in.

Therefore, I believe it is important that our veterans have access to this railcard, supporting their access to vital work prospects and retraining opportunities, and making it easier for former members of the armed forces to stay in touch with friends and relatives.

This railcard will also allow their family to travel with them, potentially saving military families hundreds of pounds a year. I am sure that you will agree with me that this is a welcome measure, alongside a much wider set of commitments which are being announced by the Minister for the Cabinet Office today in the government’s consultation response to last year’s consultation on the Strategy for our Veterans.

This new railcard is one of the first parts of this government’s commitment to make the UK the best place to be a veteran anywhere in the world. My department is pleased to be supporting this ambition through this new railcard.

Decision letter and Inspector’s Report for a recovered appeal for construction of 3 buildings, measuring 8, 14 and 34 storeys in height, to provide 365 residential dwellings (use class C3) and 554 square metres (sqm) gross of commercial/ community/ office/ leisure space (Use Class A1/A2/A3/B1/D1/D2) with associated access, servicing, energy centre, car and cycle parking, landscaping and public realm works.

Gunnersbury Park, near the M4 motorway in West London, is a 75-hectare Historic England Registered Park containing 22 listed buildings.

The historic buildings and features at Gunnersbury Park had needed restoration for several years and by 2009, eight of the listed buildings were placed on Historic England’s national Heritage At Risk Register. Now, the Highways England cash – taken from a ring fenced fund for reducing the road network’s impact on the historic environment – is helping to secure the future of three of the threatened buildings through transforming them into cultural and artistic facilities for the local community.

Highways England Principal Cultural Heritage Advisor Jim Hunter said:

I am delighted that Highways England has been able to contribute to this scheme which will help ensure a sustainable future for this beautiful park and its important buildings for generations to come. We believe in operating and improving our roads in a way that protects and supports people and the things we value for our quality of life, and helping to enhance the historic environment on or close to our road network is what our Designated Fund for Cultural Heritage is all about.

Emily Gee, Historic England’s Regional Director for London and the South East, said:

These special historic buildings within Gunnersbury Park have been derelict for decades and it’s wonderful that they are set to be transformed into cultural and arts facilities for the local community. We are delighted that Highways England’s funding has helped to secure the future of this precious landscape together with the commitment of Ealing and Hounslow councils.

The park and its buildings are jointly owned by Ealing and Hounslow Councils and managed by the not-for-profit Gunnersbury Estate 2026 Community Interest Company.

The London Borough of Hounslow and Ealing Council along with Historic England, formulated the Gunnersbury 2026 Masterplan in 2012, outlining three phases for the regeneration of Gunnersbury Park.

In 2018 work was completed on Phase One of the Masterplan, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which saw the restoration and refurbishment of the Large Mansion and other works, including the transformation of the museum within the Large Mansion.

Phase Two of the Masterplan focuses on the Small Mansion and Stable buildings along with further works within the park and the parkland. It was after reviewing this part of the masterplan, that the other partners helping to restore these beautiful buildings approached Highways England who were asked to consider providing funding towards this part of the regeneration project.

In March 2019 Highways England awarded £90,000 from their Environment Designated Fund towards the cost of specialist surveys of the Small Mansion and Stables buildings. This was matched by £280,000 of grant funding from Historic England with the total sum being used to future-proof further investment in the scheme.

Highways England has now allocated an additional £250,000 towards the design cost for the repairs to the buildings. This takes the total sum allocated by Highways England from their Environment Designated Fund to the scheme so far to £340,000. Historic England grant funded an additional £203,000, taking the total sum they have allocated towards this stage of the regeneration programme to £483,000.

Councillor Julian Bell, Leader of Ealing Council, said:

Securing this funding is a really significant step in our ongoing commitment to restore the unique heritage of Gunnersbury Park and ensure local people of all ages benefit from this beautiful and educational historic gem on their doorstep.

A great deal of work has already gone into the painstaking restoration of Gunnersbury Park’s buildings, grounds and landscape. This ambitious, multi-million pound project is bringing the park’s past and future together with state-of-the-art sports facilities alongside its historically significant buildings.

A multi-million-pound sports hub is also on its way to Gunnersbury Park, offering regular tennis, football, cricket, gym activities and even angling to local people.

Councillor Steve Curran, Leader of Hounslow Council, added:

This is a significant opportunity to continue the restoration of Gunnersbury Park. It’s great news for our local communities and for newcomers who can enjoy a whole host of activities and enjoy the wonderful amenities that Gunnersbury park has to offer.

At a time when public finances are under increasing pressure, we are extremely grateful for the funding received from bodies such as Highways England to help preserve this irreplaceable part of our local heritage for generations to come.

The funding announced by Highways England, together with the Historic England grants, will ensure completion of the design stage of Gunnersbury Phase 2. Highways England will now continue to work with other Gunnersbury Project partners to explore further options to attract funding for the construction phase of the scheme, which is projected to start in 2021-22 and last for several years.

The Environment Designated Fund was created to improve the environmental performance of the Strategic Road Network to include addressing ‘at risk’ heritage close to the network.

The fund is part of £675 million allocated to Highways England over a five-year period from 2015 for projects which aim to mitigate the strategic road network’s impact in areas including air quality, the environment, cycling, safely, integration and innovation.

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

Journeys by sea for thousands of disabled passengers are to be improved thanks to the government issuing new guidance on improving accessibility to operators.

Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani announced the publication of the Passenger Rights toolkit during a visit to Liverpool today (22 January 2020) where she met key stakeholders including Mersey Maritime, Wirral Waters and Port of Liverpool.

The toolkit provides operators in England and Wales with a high-level guide on what they must do to comply with passenger rights regulations, as well as recommendations on how maritime transport can be made more accessible.

It will apply to services such as ferries operating from Liverpool and makes recommendations on how maritime transport can be made more accessible to make journeys better for disabled passengers and staff.

Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani said:

I am delighted to be launching our Passenger Rights toolkit today in Liverpool which shows how making small changes has the potential to make a huge impact on the lives of disabled passengers.

This is one of the commitments set out in our Inclusive Transport Strategy, and I am proud we are leading the way with this work to complement the UN’s sustainable development goals – helping make the world more inclusive for disabled people.

I encourage as many operators as possible to support our vision to make sure disabled people have the same access to transport as everyone else.

The toolkit covers the whole journey experience, from accessing information at the booking stage through to arriving at the final destination. It highlights the challenges disabled people can face in travelling by sea, whether their disabilities are visible or hidden.

Maritime transport already benefits from comprehensive passenger rights regulation and this is enforced by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). The toolkit provides guidance to support the regulations and will help industry to comply with them.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) conduct inspections on operators and ports to ensure compliance with passenger rights regulations and they can be prosecuted in the courts and fined if they don’t comply.

Keith Richards, chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) said:

DPTAC welcomes the launch of this toolkit which delivers an important commitment the DfT made in its Inclusive Transport Strategy.

In turn it will help the industry deliver better access for disabled people, not just by bringing some much-needed clarity to what the law already requires on accessibility, but by promoting ideas on what good practice looks like.

This will help the industry tap into a large and growing market of disabled people who simply want to spend their money on maritime services and have the confidence to enjoy the same access as everyone else.

Bob Sanguinetti, Chief Executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, said:

It should be a basic entitlement that everyone has the option to travel independently and we are delighted to see the launch of this new passenger toolkit.

We will work with our members to ensure disabled passengers travelling by ship have the same access as everyone else.

At the end of 2018, the MCA carried out its first survey of disabled passengers’ experience when travelling by sea and the results were used to inform the recommendations made in this toolkit.

The department worked closely with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) and industry representatives including the UK Chamber of Shipping and British Ports Association in its development.

The development of the toolkit was a commitment in the Inclusive Transport Strategy, which was published in July 2018. It sets out the government’s ambition for disabled people to have the same access to transport.

It’s everyone’s journey

It’s everyone’s journey is a communications campaign developed by the Department for Transport in association with disability, transport and charity partners. The campaign aims to improve the public transport experience for disabled people by creating a more considerate and supportive travel environment.

If you’re interested in learning more about ‘it’s everyone’s journey’ or becoming a campaign partner, visit gov.uk/everyonesjourney follow @IEJGov or email everyonesjourney@dft.gov.uk.