In the Leicester Mercury, Home-Start Leicester, for which Liz is a patron, launch a major appeal to raise funds. To read more click here.

Too often patients and their families struggle with all the different NHS and social care services to get the help they desperately need. This isn’t good for them, and it wastes taxpayers’ money too if people end up having to use more expensive hospital or residential care.

People want services and support that fits around their lives, and which helps them stay healthy and living independently in their own homes wherever possible. This is what Labour’s vision of “Whole Person Care” is all about.

On Monday 22nd April, Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham and I launched a new Independent Commission on Whole Person Care to look at how we make our vision a reality.

It is being chaired by Sir John Oldham, one of the country’s leading experts on integrating care. You can read more about the Commision and its work here, here and here.

Photo taken by HollisPhotography.Com

I’m very proud to be a Patron of Home-Start, the fantastic national charity for parents with young children that was founded here in Leicester.

Last year, Home-Start supported 852 families and 1,813 children across Leicestershire. Their 519 fully-trained parent volunteers work directly with families in their homes, helping children get the best start in life.

Government cuts put this vital work at risk and meant that the charity faced the very real prospect of having to close its doors. However, thanks to the hard work of the charity’s staff and volunteers, alternative funding was secured from donors including the LCFC Foxes Foundation, The Tudor Trust, Henry Smith and Lloyds TSB.

I recently helped launch Home-Start’s major 40^th Anniversary Appeal, which seeks to raise the funds they need to continue their vital work.  Please do get involved by donating whatever you can.

I’ve been pressing for the information on death rates in children’s heart surgery to be released and properly considered before any final decision is taken on the future of the children’s heart surgery unit at Glenfield.

This has finally happened and you can see the data here. It proves what we have been saying for months – that Glenfield’s children’s heart surgery unit provides absolutely excellent standards of care.

It beggars belief that the unit is earmarked for closure when it has the second lowest death rates of any service in the country. That’s why I’ve recently got a group of 16 cross party MPs to write to the Health Secretary, the Independent Reconfiguration Panel and to the Medical Director of the NHS demanding that the Government over-turn the decision to close services at Glenfield. You can read the letters here.

You can see reports on this issue by ITV news here and by the Leicester Mercury here.