Happy New Year! Despite a few days off with my family over the festive season, there has been much activity.
I made a pre-Christmas visit to the Royal Mail delivery office in Mold to say a personal ‘thank-you’ to our local posties.
In year two of the Leonard Cheshire Disability Wales ‘Strictly Cymru’ dance competition for disabled individuals of all abilities, I was Head Judge at the regional heat in Dolywern.
During a presentation to pupils at the National Assembly for Wales office in Colwyn Bay, I spoke about what an Assembly Member does and answered questions.
I had a useful discussion during my visit to the new North Wales Woody’s Lodge veterans’ centre in Colwyn Bay, a charity providing safe spaces for armed service veterans, recent leavers, reservists and those who served in the emergency services.
It was a privilege to meet Margaret Williams MBE and fellow volunteers at Charity ‘North Wales Superkids’, which works to relieve the needs of children and young people in North Wales who are socially and economically disadvantaged, and to discuss their ‘Christmas Toy Box Appeal’.
During a meeting to discuss an autistic young man who took his own life, the need for public service providers to recognise that ‘the autism is how autistic people are, you don’t treat that, you should focus on all the other problems they face’ was again emphasised to me.
I attended a meeting with Flintshire County Council and members of the local Autism Community to discuss the North Wales Integrated Autism Service hosted by the Council, the needs of autistic service users and working together going forward.
During a useful meeting with the Chief Executives of Nightingale House Hospice, Wrexham, St, David’s Hospice, Llandudno, and St. Kentigern Hospice, St. Asaph, we discussed the key frontline services they provide and the need for our Health Board to engage with them to create together an overarching specialist palliative care plan for people with a life-limiting illness in North Wales. Although these community organisations provide massive social return on investment, their statutory funding has not risen since 2010 and over 80% of their funding is raised within their own communities.
I attended a briefing at North Wales Police Headquarters in Colwyn Bay on the challenges currently facing North Wales Police. In other meetings I discussed affordable housing and Planning in Buckley Town Council Offices and diagnostic investigations for prostate cancer sufferers in BCU Health Board’s St Asaph Offices.
If you need my help, please email [email protected] or call 0300 200 7219.