Category Archives: Public services policy

Government sets aside extra £1bn for victims of UK’s infected blood scandal

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Additional funds include extra £35,000 each for former pupils experimented on at school without their knowledge

Compensation payments will rise for people affected by the infected blood scandal, including an extra £35,000 each for former pupils who were experimented on at school without their knowledge, the paymaster general has announced. The government has allocated £1bn for the payments.

The final report of the inquiry into what has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history was published in May 2024. The compensation scheme that followed has also been blighted by controversy.

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NHS restructure is greatest danger to Streeting’s effort to revive service

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Health secretary still confident of success but critics say scrapping of NHS England has been ‘a total car crash’

In the Great Hall at the University of East London last Wednesday, the perennially upbeat Wes Streeting was exuding even greater positivity than usual. After years of neglect under the Conservatives, he said, the NHS was starting to revive thanks to Labour’s medicine.

In a bravura performance in front of an audience of health service bosses, policy experts and student nurses in their blue and green uniforms, Streeting reeled off a long list of improvements in his 20-month tenure as health secretary.

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Plans to cut NHS international workforce appear overambitious, say MPs

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Health service in England has saved more than £14bn hiring from overseas, report says, as doubt is cast on aim to reduce international recruitment to 10%

Ministers’ plans to cut the international workforce within NHS England appear overambitious, MPs have said, as a report reveals the health service saved more than £14bn by recruiting doctors, nurses and midwives from overseas.

Many of the countries recruited from were struggling with staff shortages, and the UK had a moral duty to offer support, rather than simply extracting what it needed, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on global health and security found.

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Patients face long journeys for medicines as pharmacies cut weekend hours

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More than 20% of weekend availability lost in England since 2022, forcing some to turn to A&E, says national association

People who need to obtain medication at the weekend are having to undertake long trips because more pharmacies are cutting their opening hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

One in six pharmacies in England have reduced their hours at weekends since 2022, with some shutting altogether, as a result of “unsustainable” pressures on their budgets.

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Head of carer’s allowance inquiry blames DWP ‘resistance’ for failure to fix crisis

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Liz Sayce tells MPs some civil servants tried to minimise extent of problems and deflect blame

The head of an official inquiry into carer’s allowance has criticised “forces of resistance” inside the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that undermined ministerial attempts to fix longstanding problems with the much-criticised benefit.

Liz Sayce, whose review of carer’s allowance was published in November, said rather than owning the problems, some at the DWP had tried to “minimise” the extent of the department’s failures and sought to deflect blame for the crisis.

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Treasury calls in Blair thinktank to advise on using AI across public services

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Tech equity campaigners compare move to ‘inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse’

Ministers have called in Tony Blair’s thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across the UK government in a move campaigners compared to “inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse”.

James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chair of IBM and senior executives at AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk’s Space X.

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Ministers must end ‘barking mad’ restraints on civil service pay, union leader warns

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Exclusive: Prospect boss Mike Clancy cites problems retaining technical and digital experts

Ministers must end “barking mad” restraints on civil service pay or risk being unable to recruit the technical and digital specialists it needs to keep pace, a union leader has warned.

Mike Clancy, the Prospect general secretary, said the government should end the “rightwing trope” that restrained the pay of highly skilled civil servants and left government unable to compete with the private sector. He said it should be realistic for senior specialists in competitive fields to be paid more than the prime minister.

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Reform’s public-sector pensions plan could cost billions extra, union warns

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Prospect says proposals to make payouts less generous would damage public finances rather than save money

Reform UK’s plans to make public-sector pensions less generous could cost billions extra a year and cause a ticking timebomb in the public finances, a leading trade union has warned.

Prospect said the plans unveiled by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, would damage the public finances rather than save money “and end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of pounds in the years to come”.

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Keir Starmer says digital ID cards an ‘enormous opportunity’ for the UK

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PM to set out plans for compulsory ‘Brit card’ but faces opposition from civil liberty groups over privacy concerns

Digital ID cards present “an enormous opportunity” for the UK, Keir Starmer has said, as the government braces for a civil liberties row over the proposals.

The prime minister will set out the measures on Friday morning at a conference on how progressive politicians can tackle the problems facing the UK, including addressing voter concerns around immigration.

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Hospices ‘on the brink’ financially if assisted dying is legalised

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As House of Lords prepares to debate bill, Hospice UK says sector needs adequate funding for end-of-life care

Hospices are “on the brink” and two in five are making cuts this year despite the importance of end-of-life care if assisted dying becomes legal, the sector has warned before the first House of Lords debate on the legislation.

Hospice UK, which represents the sector, said many were financially struggling and still “in the dark” about how funding for end-of-life care will be improved when assisted dying legislation is passed.

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UK visa services firm sues ex-boss for £6m over alleged improper use of profits

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Exclusive: Ecctis alleges Cloud Bai-Yun used profits from government contract to buy out her shares in breach of fiduciary duty

The company that runs visa services for the UK government is suing its former chief executive for £6m over her alleged improper use of profits earned during a period of record immigration.

Cloud Bai-Yun, who once represented the UK on an international ethics and fraud advisory body, is accused by Ecctis of a breach of fiduciary duty, according to court filings.

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VIP contract introduced by Tory peer left government owed £24m

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DHSC rejected as ‘unusable’ PPE supplied by company linked to Lord Chadlington, which later went bust

They were the lucrative deals that epitomised the “VIP lane” set up by Boris Johnson’s government during the Covid pandemic, which gave priority for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts to people with political connections.

Peter Gummer, a former PR boss who has been Tory peer Lord Chadlington since 1996, had smooth access at his fingertips. The erstwhile adviser to John Major has “close personal friendships with many senior Conservative party politicians”, he has said, and as president of the Witney constituency association in the Cotswolds is “close friends” with its most notable MP: David Cameron.

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Three million on NHS England waiting lists have had no care since GP referral

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Exclusive: Data reveals ‘invisible crisis’ with millions yet to have first specialist appointment or diagnostic test

Almost half of the 6 million people needing treatment from the NHS in England have had no further care at all since joining a hospital waiting list, new data reveals.

Previously unseen NHS England figures show that 2.99 million of the 6.23 million patients (48%) awaiting care have not had either their first appointment with a specialist or a diagnostic test since being referred by a GP.

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Nine out of 10 nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reject pay award

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Royal College of Nursing urges ministers to improve 3.6% offer to avoid industrial action ballot later this year

Nine out of 10 nurses have rejected a 3.6% pay award for this year and warned they could strike later this year unless their salaries are improved.

In an indicative vote among members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 91% said the 3.6% rise was not enough.

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Ministers to enshrine UK charities’ right to peaceful protest in new ‘covenant’

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Agreement between government and voluntary sector aims to reset relations after erosion of trust under Tories

The right to engage in political activity and protest peacefully is to be enshrined in a new agreement between the government and UK charities and campaigners aimed in part at ending years of damaging “culture wars”.

The agreement is intended to reset relations between government and the voluntary sector after years of mutual distrust during which Conservative ministers limited public rights to protest, froze out campaigners, and targeted “woke” charities.

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Minority ethnic and deprived children more likely to die after UK intensive care admission

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Study shows such young people have higher risk of arriving at paediatric ICU severely ill and have worse outcomes

Minority ethnic children and children from deprived backgrounds across the UK are more likely to die following admission to intensive care than their white and more affluent counterparts, a study has found.

These children consistently had worse outcomes following their stay in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), the research by academics at Imperial College London discovered.

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‘We’ve made progress’: environment secretary is upbeat despite Labour’s struggles

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Steve Reed says changes to living standards are happening and will make a big difference to trust in government

It was probably easier for Steve Reed to feel more cheerful about Labour’s most torrid week in government while sitting on bales of hay in the blazing sunshine about 40 miles from Westminster.

The environment secretary might have sympathised with Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall – he has experience of bearing the flak for some of the government’s most controversial decisions on family farm taxes – but at Hertfordshire’s Groundswell festival, named the Glastonbury for farms, he may simply have been happy not to be pelted with manure by unhappy farmers.

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Labour’s 10-year health plan for the NHS is bold, radical – and familiar

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The health service transformation proposed for England faces daunting challenges that overwhelmed earlier attempts at reform

The government’s 10-year health plan to revive, modernise and future-proof the NHS in England has arrived as the service is facing a dual crisis. It has been unable for a decade now to provide the rapid access – to GPs, A&E care, surgery, ambulances and mental health support – which people need and used to get.

Normalisation of anxiety-inducing, frightening and sometimes fatal delay has produced a less tangible, but also dangerous, crisis: of public satisfaction, born of a profound loss of trust that the NHS will be there for them or their loved ones when they need it.

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Streeting sets out digital overhaul of NHS centred on ‘doctor in your pocket’ app

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Health secretary banks on resulting efficiencies to reduce number of frontline workers in 10-year health plan

Wes Streeting has staked the future of the NHS on a digital overhaul in which a beefed-up NHS app and new hospital league tables are intended to give patients unprecedented control over their care.

A dramatic expansion of the role of the NHS app will result in fewer staff than expected by 2035, with Streeting banking on digital efficiencies to reduce the number of frontline workers, a move described as a “large bet” by health experts.

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Sickle cell patients to have quicker and more accessible treatment in England

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Government announces £9m funding to make specialist blood machines more widely available across NHS

People living with sickle cell disease in England are to benefit from quicker and more accessible treatment due to a £9m investment, the government has announced.

Apheresis services, which are a type of treatment that removes harmful components from a patient’s blood, are to improve across England through the funding of more specialist treatment centres. The funding will ensure the wider availability of machines that remove a patient’s sickled red blood cells and replace them with healthy donor cells.

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