Unions say government proposals to cut training by a year and introduce apprenticeships could dilute skills
Plans to shorten medical training could dilute the calibre of doctors entering the NHS in England and damage the quality of care patients receive, doctors’ leaders have warned.
Government proposals to cut doctors’ time in medical school from five to four years, and to introduce medical apprenticeships, could “water down” training for health service staff, they said.
Continue reading...Advisory committee on business appointments says it has seen ‘no evidence’ that Gray’s decision-making was affected despite ex-PM’s claim
NHS England has just published its 150-page long-term workforce plan. It’s here.
The government is keen to present it as an NHS plan, not a government plan, and at the moment you cannot find it prominently on the No 10 or Department of Health and Social Care websites.
This is our longer-term, strategic approach to workforce planning. In a nutshell we will:
1. Train more staff
Continue reading...Society of Radiographers members reject offer, pushing for deal they say could help cut waiting lists
Thousands of radiographers in England have voted to go on strike for the first time in the increasingly bitter healthcare pay dispute.
The Society of Radiographers (SoR) secured sufficient turnout and votes in 43 NHS trusts to go on strike in a ballot that closed on 28 June. More than 150 trusts had a majority in favour of action but not all met the turnout threshold.
Continue reading...Another man aged 28 has stab wound not thought to be life-threatening after incident in Archway
A 15-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man have been stabbed to death in north London.
The teenager died at the scene in Elthorne Road, Archway, after the stabbing at 11.30pm on Thursday, while the man was taken to hospital where he was later pronounced dead. A 28-year-old man was found with a stab wound that was not life-threatening.
Continue reading...Committee says ministers do not have credible strategy to tackle digital exclusion
The government is failing millions of digitally excluded citizens who do not have the means, money or ability to go online, a House of Lords committee has said.
Ministers do not have a credible strategy to tackle digital exclusion and are allowing “millions of citizens to fall behind”, according to a report by the Lords communications and digital committee.
Continue reading...Hope Street scheme in Southampton aims to keep women in criminal justice system out of jail and with their children
It all started when Edwina Grosvenor spent an hour with two heroin addicts at a drug rehabilitation centre in Liverpool, almost 30 years ago.
Her parents – Natalia and Gerald Grosvenor, who was one the richest men in the UK and the sixth Duke of Westminster – decided to take her to the centre at the age of 12 or 13 to show her that there was a world beyond her privileged bubble. “At that moment I learned about empathy,” Lady Grosvenor said.
Continue reading...The move is a major policy shift in country’s male-dominated parliament and brings Japan into line with more than 90 other countries
Japan is to permit the sale of emergency contraceptives without prescription on a trial basis, weeks after it approved the abortion pill.
The move, reported by media on Tuesday, will bring Japan into line with dozens of other countries where the morning-after pill is already available over the counter.
Continue reading...Under online safety bill, maximum sentence where intent to cause distress is proved will be two years
Sharing deepfake intimate images is to be criminalised in England and Wales. Amendments to the online safety bill will make it illegal to share explicit images or videos that have been digitally manipulated to look like someone else without their consent.
The Ministry of Justice said the use of deepfakes had been increasing in recent years, with a website that virtually strips women naked receiving 38m hits in the first eight months of 2021.
Continue reading...Children are being left in limbo so long that they are at risk of harm, social workers warn
Lone child asylum seekers are facing fivefold increases in delays in having their claims processed by the Home Office, with devastating consequences, according to a new report.
Social workers, legal professionals and the children themselves have warned that the impact of being left in limbo about their future for so long includes the risk of suicide, self-harm and persistent insomnia.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie.
Continue reading...Development charity says patients denied treatment or held hostage until fees paid in private facilities in India and Kenya
Private hospitals in India and Kenya accused of refusing people on low incomes vital healthcare, or holding them hostage until bills have been paid, benefit from UK government investment funds, according to a report by Oxfam.
Investments worth hundreds of millions of pounds by government-backed agencies are used to facilitate the “impoverishment and even the imprisonment of the very people [the private hospitals] are supposed to be helping”, said the development charity.
Continue reading...England footballer recalls childhood emergency housing as royal launches five-year UK scheme
Homeless people are to be helped into permanent accommodation, regardless of their circumstances, as part of a five-year project to be run by Prince William’s foundation and supported by the England footballer Tyrone Mings.
The project, called Homewards, which emulates one run in Finland, will be launched initially in six areas around the UK and is aimed at preventing homelessness where possible and ensuring any incidence is “rare, brief and unrepeated”. The Prince of Wales’s charitable foundation is giving £3m of startup funding to the project.
Continue reading...Anguished families talk about how the Bank of England’s 13th consecutive interest hike is affecting them – and their fears for the future
Liam, 36, a senior IT manager and married father-of-one from Newcastle upon Tyne, is one of millions of homeowners whose mortgage payments will rise even higher after the Bank of England on Thursday put up the base interest rate to 5% – a 15-year high.
Together with his husband, Liam bought his four-bedroom house in 2019 for £269k, and the couple’s three-year mortgage deal, refixed at 1.64% in 2020 just before the first lockdown, expired in March.
Continue reading...Party’s first female general secretary, who has died aged 61, was essential part of team behind party’s 1997 landslide victory
Margaret McDonagh, Labour’s first female general secretary, has been hailed as a “tour de force” and an essential part of the team that secured the 1997 landslide election victory for the party, after it was announced that she had died at the age of 61.
Baroness McDonagh, who was elevated to the House of Lords in 2004, was, in effect, Peter Mandelson’s deputy during the 1997 election and went on to oversee a second dominant campaign in 2001. She became the party’s general secretary in 1998. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 2021.
Continue reading...Campaigners set to hold events across the country on first anniversary of supreme court overturning constitutional right to abortion
Several reproductive rights organizations have announced their endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
The organizations include Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro-Choice America , and EMILYs List, a political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women into office.
“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been committed to fighting back against the onslaught of attacks against our reproductive freedom. And we need them to continue this critical work.
Abortion is health care… We need leaders who are committed to protecting our freedoms, not taking them away. That is why we must re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris: people we can trust to keep rebuilding a path forward, because we know the journey to rebuilding our rights will be met with challenges,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are the strongest advocates for reproductive freedom ever to occupy the White House, and NARAL Pro-Choice America proudly endorses their reelection. It’s as simple as this: Abortion matters to Americans. In elections since the Supreme Court took away our right to abortion, voters have mobilized in massive numbers to elect Democrats who will fight to restore it...”
EMILYs List president Laphonza Butler released the following statement:
“When the Dobbs decision ended a constitutional right for the first time in this country’s history, we were grateful to have leaders in the White House like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been vocal advocates for abortion rights across the government and across the country… For her work as a groundbreaker, tireless advocate for reproductive freedom, and inspiring change-maker, EMILYs List is thrilled to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for reelection.”
Continue reading...Referral unit providers warn of overwhelming demand from unprecedented poor behaviour after pandemic lull
Referral units for children who have been excluded from mainstream schools are warning that they are full to bursting because of unprecedented levels of disruptive behaviour across the country.
Providers that take children excluded from mainstream schools say that after a lull during the pandemic, the situation has deteriorated, and they have seen permanent exclusions rising across the country in the past year. The situation had appeared to be improving with the latest government data on permanent exclusions in England showing that they fell in the spring term last year to 2,200 from 2,800 in 2019.
Continue reading...Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed
Poorer countries struggling with a growing debt crisis were thrown a lifeline at a global finance summit in Paris but the plans still fell short of the debt forgiveness programme that some had hoped for.
Progress was made on reforms that would help address the climate emergency, as nearly 40 world leaders and the heads of global institutions met in Paris for the summit, which ended on Friday.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: On the anniversary of Roe v Wade’s overturning, one woman tells her story of being forced to carry a baby to term
Good morning. A year ago tomorrow, the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, and reproductive rights in America were thrown into turmoil. The landmark 1973 ruling had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for almost 50 years. With its removal, the ability of tens of millions of women to make decisions about their own bodies was abruptly stripped away.
Twelve months on, the picture for many is grim.
Titanic sub | The US Navy has said it detected an “anomaly” that was likely the Titan’s fatal implosion, soon after the submersible went missing on its voyage to the wreck of the Titanic. Film director James Cameron has also claimed his sources in the deep-sea exploration industry detected a “loud bang”.
Mortgages | The government’s pledge to ease the cost of living crisis is in tatters after the unexpected leap in interest rates to 5%, a “shock and awe” move by the Bank of England which some fear will push the UK into recession.
London | Ministers have been accused of criminalising the flying of the European union flag on government buildings in England after London’s City Hall was told it could be prosecuted for displaying it on the anniversary of the Brexit referendum.
Covid | England’s chief medical officer, Sir Chris Whitty, said the UK “did not give sufficient thought” to stopping Covid in its tracks as he listed multiple problems with preparedness in his first cross-examination at the pandemic public inquiry. He added that the government’s “big weakness” was a lack of “radicalism” in thinking before the crisis took hold.
Diabetes | The number of adults living with diabetes worldwide will more than double by 2050, according to research that blames rapidly rising obesity levels and widening health inequalities. New estimates predict the number will rise from 529 million in 2021 to more than 1.3 billion in 2050.
Continue reading...Most unhoused people are from in state and desire to find housing, while Black and older people are disproportionately affected
Nearly half of all unhoused adults in California are over the age of 50, with Black residents dramatically overrepresented, according to the largest study of the state’s homeless population in decades.
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) research released on Tuesday also revealed that 90% of the population lost their housing in California, with 75% of them now living in the same county where they were last housed. The study further found that nearly nine out of 10 people reported that the cost of housing was the main barrier to leaving homelessness.
Continue reading...Experts say restrictions on socialising during Covid crisis may have led more women to seek to preserve fertility
There has been a dramatic rise in the number of women freezing their eggs in the UK, while more single people are opting for IVF, figures show.
A report from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HEFA) found that more people than ever are undergoing procedures, with egg- and embryo-freezing the fastest-growing fertility treatments in Britain.
Continue reading...Queen’s funeral credited for hymns’ revival while Time to Say Goodbye replaces You’ll Never Walk Alone at No 1
Hymns are back among the most popular funeral songs, boosted by the queen’s funeral, while the Monty Python song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life has slipped out of the top 10, funeral directors have said.
All Things Bright and Beautiful and Abide With Me are the first hymns in the top 10 for seven years, in the Co-op Funeralcare chart based on song selections at about 93,000 funerals.
Continue reading...