Swan up for national award

A THORNBURY pub is one of 15 to reach the finals of a national award.

The Swan has been picked out from among 200 entrants to the Community Pub Hero Awards, organised by PubAid, a working party dedicated to promoting pubs as a force for good in their local communities, and the AllParty Parliamentary Beer Group.

Entries were judged by a panel of industry experts and the overall winners will be announced in March, with all finalists invited to a presentation at the House of Commons.

The competition, sponsored by drink producer Matthew Clark, first ran in 2018 and has been expanded this year to offer two categories for pubs: Community Support Hero or Charity Fundraising Hero, and a new Community Regular Hero where pubs nominate a supportive customer.

The Swan has been nominated for its fundraising activities including afternoon teas, fish and chip suppers, a knitathon and a 24-hour dart marathon, to help causes including Thornbury Stroke Group.

The work of staff to run a local collection for Ukraine last year was also cited.

PubAid co-founder Des O’Flanagan said: “Our heartfelt congratulations go to The Swan.

"Choosing the finalists from a very strong set of entries was a real challenge and those pubs who have reached the shortlist should be very proud of their achievement.

“Judges were hugely impressed by the stories from so many pubs, who have raised astonishing sums for charities, or provided incredible support for local people. The awards demonstrate, once again, that pubs are a force for good in their communities.” please can we have £600 a year’, depending on the package.

“It’s a death spiral because as more and more people go over to the private sector, they can then pay them more, the NHS service gets worse each year and it will slowly degrade and more people will go over.”

Cllr Griffiths said dentists had told him they got paid between £30,000 and £60,000 a year more to treat the same patients privately than on the NHS.

NHS South England head of stakeholder engagement Lou Farbus told councillors there was a "workforce crisis" across all clinical and social care in the region.

NHS England South West director of dental, specialised and health and justice commissioning Steve Sylvester told the meeting in late January: “A lot of work has been done nationally in terms of the contract where you get paid one rate for NHS and another for private provision.

“Our ability to control and influence practices is hampered. They are independent businesses in the main.

“This is a big tanker to turn around. It’s been sailing in the wrong direction for a number of years.

“The challenge we face is we don’t have a right to be registered with a dentist – it’s not a GP practice.

A report to members said the percentage of adults with NHS dentists in South Gloucestershire had fallen steadily in recent years and stood at 36.7% last June, a 5.9% drop in 12 months.

This was lower than the access rate for England as a whole, at 37.4%.

The number of children who saw a dentist rose by 12.3% to 42%, although this was still below the national average of 46.9%.

It said the figures were affected by the pandemic when routine check-ups were cancelled.

By Adam Postans, Local Democracy Reporting Service