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A lot of what's achieved in parliament actually happens outside the chamber

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 14:50, Fri 20 June 2014:

My new researcher, Neil, who's based in London, visited our constituency office last week. It's always nice to have the whole team together, and it doesn't happen very often. Not that I saw much of them - I was out of the office meeting women in Old Trafford to discuss what's going on in their area, then into town for a meeting of the Greater Manchester poverty commission, and finishing up with a meeting at Wythenshawe hospital.

It was back to Old Trafford on Saturday, for another community meeting, to discuss the redevelopment plans for Shrewsbury Street community centre. I'm particularly anxious about getting the right health services in the new premises. We discussed what's important to local people, which was very useful, since I had an appointment with health secretary Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday to discuss the project and the need to sort out the financing. He has promised to get back to me, and I will be chasing up for an early response.

I headed off to Trafford Carers' Centre on Sunday, for their celebration for carers' week. They do absolutely fantastic work, and have made some promotional videos about the support they can offer carers - watch them at https://vimeo.com/dfptv/review/97510490/a9ecf7b57e https://vimeo.com/dfptv/review/97508943/1a7eba6b1c https://vimeo.com/dfptv/review/97509178/4384ee8232

On Monday, I had the great pleasure of attending a ceremony at Trafford General to mark the end of the first internship programme that has been run there for learning disabled people to get real work experience and develop new skills. This is a fantastic programme, and I am so impressed with the trainees, who've worked right across the hospital, in every department from housekeeping to pharmacy to IT. Some of the trainees already have jobs lined up, which is great news, but now we need local bosses to offer the others work. I can promise they'll make excellent colleagues.

I then took the train down to London, arriving in time to join an event on sickle cell disease. This disease is most common among African Caribbean people, but I recently met a young Asian woman in the constituency who has the disease, and she's keen to raise awareness that it can occur in other ethnic groups too.

I then went to a briefing by Macmillan, the cancer support charity, about their new research showing that cancer patients are waiting months for decisions on the Personal Independence Payment that can help meet the extra costs of living with a serious illness. I was shocked to meet a young woman whose husband had died earlier this year - his benefit was finally approved after his death. That just isn't good enough.

On Tuesday, I had a very interesting meeting with Habinteg, who specialise in providing specially adapted and accessible homes for disabled people. Then a meeting with the Children's Society to hear about their new research into family debt, a meeting with Peter Kelly from Poverty Alliance, and a discussion on fracking (a big issue for us locally) to round off the day.

On Wednesday, I sat in on a debate on the closure of the Independent Living Fund, which supports disabled people to live in their own homes - though due to a quirk of parliamentary procedure, I wasn't actually allowed to speak. Then went to a lunchtime discussion on making business more disabled-friendly, a great meeting with my constituent Kirsty McGregor from Stretford who was in parliament to talk about Mind's new mental health campaign, a cup of tea with Baroness Thornton, with whom I used to work on the equalities team, and finally off to a dinner hosted by Granada TV for North West MPs.

I headed off Thursday to meet Prospect, the union which represents the healthcare staff who work for ATOS carrying out work capability assessments - a very interesting meeting indeed. So it's been quite a busy week, but the one thing I've scarcely done is actually go into the debating chamber. A lot of what's achieved in parliament happens outside.