Category Archives: England

Quarter of people in England had poor NHS care in past year, report says

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Survey for patient watchdog finds over half of those who made complaint were not satisfied with process or outcome

A quarter of people in England experienced poor NHS care over the last year but fewer than one in 10 of them complained about it, a report by the patient watchdog has revealed.

When people did complain, more than half were not satisfied with either the process involved or the outcome, Healthwatch England said. Complaints take many months to resolve.

24% of patients had received poor care in that time – the equivalent of 10.7 million people in England.

56% took no action – and only 9% made a complaint.

20% were scared that complaining would affect their treatment.

34% did not trust the NHS to use a complaint they made to improve services.

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New rules ease reporting restrictions in family courts across England and Wales

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Journalists and bloggers to have greater access under ‘open reporting provisions’ after pilot scheme launched in 2023

A scheme allowing journalists increased access to family courts is being rolled out in an effort to improve transparency.

The initiative permits accredited journalists and legal bloggers to report on cases as they unfold, as they would in criminal courts, provided the families and certain professionals involved remain anonymous.

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Spooky kettles and a girl in white: Adele’s ‘scary’ mansion not all that’s haunting Sussex village

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Owners claim singer ‘blighted’ sale of property she once rented but Partridge Green has no shortage of ghostly tales

At first it was the strange rumblings that would wake her. Then bright lights would fill the bedroom as a face appeared, looking down on her. Her husband, who worked nights, never believed her until one day, he saw it too.

Shaken by the sightings, the couple sold the cottage and moved far away from Partridge Green, a quaint, isolated village in West Sussex. Thirty years later, a short distance away from where these night-time hauntings took place, the village welcomed a surprising new arrival.

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Man arrested after climate activists cut UK insurance firms’ fibre optic cables

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Protest group says it targeted insurers ‘due to their critical role underpinning the fossil fuel economy’

A man has been arrested after environmental activists claimed responsibility for sabotage attacks on fibre optic cables outside major insurance companies.

The 29-year-old was arrested by City of London police after activists said they had cut the cables to insurance company offices in London, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield on Monday.

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Gender dysphoria diagnoses among children in England rise fiftyfold over 10 years

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Study of GP records finds prevalence rose from one in 60,000 in 2011 to one in 1,200 in 2021 – but numbers still low overall

The number of children and young people in England with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria recorded by a GP has risen fiftyfold over 10 years, researchers have found, though numbers are still relatively small.

The growing number of birth-registered females seeking referrals to gender clinics has raised concerns in recent years, with tensions over how best to tackle gender dysphoria in children resulting in the Cass review last year.

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Croydon stabbings: man ‘fended off attacker with fire extinguisher’

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Suspect, 30, arrested after five people injured at distribution centre on south London industrial estate

A man has described how he fought and fended off a knife-wielding attacker with a fire extinguisher after barricading himself and others inside an office of a warehouse where five people were injured during a mass stabbing.

Police arrested a 30-year-old man after the attack at a warehouse close to a supermarket in Croydon, south London, on Thursday morning.

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Kevin Clarke’s family denounce police discipline system after officers cleared

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Two Met officers denied hearing Clarke say ‘I can’t breathe’ before he died under restraint in 2018

The family of a black man who died after being restrained by police officers who denied having heard him say “I can’t breathe” have condemned the police discipline system after two officers were cleared of gross misconduct.

Kevin Clarke, 35, died while in police custody in 2018, with the restraint having lasted more than 30 minutes.

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Calls for Home Office to protect asylum seekers after accommodation violence

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Exclusive: NGOs say safeguarding policies need improving, as victims tell of multiple assaults and incidents of race hate

NGOs are calling for improvements in UK government safeguarding policies after multiple acts of violence and race hate incidents in Home Office accommodation.

The incidents include 20 assaults of asylum seekers in one small area of Essex and a separate incident where another was attacked and threatened with a knife by a man recently released into shared asylum accommodation from prison on licence. Slices of bacon were also laid over food belonging to Muslim residents stored in a communal kitchen fridge.

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Three more people charged with murder after shooting in north-west London

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Michelle Sadio, 44, died after shots were fired towards mourners outside church in Harlesden

Three more people have been charged with murder after a woman was killed in a drive-by shooting outside a north-west London church.

Michelle Sadio, 44, died after shots were fired in Harlesden at about 9pm on 14 December. She was standing with mourners outside the River of Life pentecostal church after a wake.

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British man admits stabbing partner to death in Italy

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Michael Whitbread, 75, is on trial in Lanciano for murder of fellow Briton Michele Faiers, 66, in October 2023

A British man living in Italy has admitted stabbing his partner to death, claiming he did it after she accused him of cheating on her.

Michael Whitbread, 75, told a court he could not remember how many times he stabbed fellow Briton Michele Faiers, 66, in October 2023.

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‘She stood up for her friend’: caring teenager’s death shocked Croydon

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Elianne Andam was stabbed to death by friend’s ex-boyfriend Hassan Sentamu after dispute outside shopping centre

Elianne Andam was known, above all, for her caring nature. During her memorial service, her father recounted an evening when she found six snails flushed out on the pavement due to the rain. She picked up the “slimy creatures” and moved them out of harm’s way so they would not die prematurely. “Oh, the irony,” her father said.

On 27 September 2023, Andam stood up for her friend, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend. They met Hassan Sentamu, who was 17 at the time, to exchange items. Her friend handed a bag to Sentamu but he failed to hand over her items, including a teddy bear she wanted back.

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‘Absolute pandemonium’: stories of ‘corridor care’ from the NHS in England

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Patients tell of their anger and embarrassment, while healthcare professionals say they are ‘heartbroken’

John, 42, said he was “quite angry” after spending about 24 hours in a hospital corridor in south-west England, having arrived in A&E on Monday afternoon with chest pain. “It was very clear that the hospital was running beyond capacity.”

At the time of writing, he had moved to a different hospital in the area and was waiting for an angiogram on Wednesday. Messaging from his corridor hospital bed he said: “It’s narrow, cramped and there is zero patient privacy.”

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Hospital patients dying undiscovered in corridors, report on NHS reveals

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Royal College of Nursing says people ‘routinely coming to harm’ with vital equipment not available and staff too busy

Patients are dying in hospital corridors and going undiscovered for hours, while others who suffer heart attacks cannot be given CPR because of overcrowding in walkways, a bombshell report on the state of the NHS has revealed.

So many patients are being cared for in hospital corridors across the UK that in some cases pregnant women are having miscarriages outside wards while other patients are unable to call for help because they have no call bell and are subjected to “animal-like conditions”, said the Royal College of Nursing.

Patients have died on trolleys and chairs in corridors and waiting rooms in settings where “all the fundamentals of care have broken down”.

One nurse had seen “cardiac arrests in the corridor with no crash bell, crash trolley, oxygen, defibrillator … straddling a patient doing CPR while everyone watches on”.

Patients are being given drugs, intravenous infusions and, in one case, a blood transfusion in corridors which are cold, noisy and too cramped to allow them to have loved ones present.

One nurse had to tell a patient he was dying as other patients were wheeled past and orders were shouted across the unit. They said: “How is it fair to tell someone they are dying in a corridor?”

Lack of space means patients also being treated in storerooms, car parks, offices and even toilets.

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Three people arrested after fatal stabbing of boy, 14, on London bus

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Two teenagers held on suspicion of murder and woman on suspicion of assisting offender, after Kelyan Bokassa’s death

Police investigating the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy on a London bus have arrested three people.

Kelyan Bokassa was travelling on a 472 bus to Abbey Wood when he was attacked at about 2.30pm on Tuesday as the bus was on Woolwich Church Road.

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Surrey councillors ask ministers to ‘write off’ Woking’s £1bn debt

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Taxpayers asked to shoulder burden as beleaguered council expected to merge with neighbouring authorities

Taxpayers are being asked to shoulder £1bn in debt amassed by a bankrupt Surrey council that will be merged in the government’s plan for the biggest transfer of powers to England’s regions this century.

Posing a fresh financial headache for the government, councillors in Surrey have requested that ministers “write off” £1bn in debt held by troubled Woking borough council to enable a merger between the county’s 12 local authorities.

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Tory police cuts are only part of the ongoing crisis affecting victims of crime

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Austerity affected courts, prisons and public services while rates of poverty surged, creating the conditions for more crime

The period in which clear-up rates for the most serious crimes collapsed coincided with big cuts to police budgets, and the subsequent fall in police officer numbers of about 20,000.

The last Conservative government, responsible for the cuts after 2010 in the name of austerity, spent its time denying they would have any damaging effect on crime fighting in England and Wales. Then, in its final years, it started to reverse the cuts, and pretended “wokery” among law enforcement had diverted officers’ attention.

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Ambulance crews stuck at A&E miss thousands of 999 calls a day in England

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Exclusive: paramedics unable to respond to 100,000 calls a month as they wait to hand over patients

Paramedics in England are unable to respond to 100,000 urgent 999 calls every month because they are stuck outside hospitals waiting to hand over patients, endangering thousands of lives, the Guardian can reveal.

As the crisis engulfing the NHS intensified this weekend, figures showed ambulance crews are tied up at A&E for so long that on more than 3,500 occasions each day they are unable to respond to a 999 plea for help.

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State school pupils in England may have to drop GSCE Latin after funding pulled

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DfE urged to delay ending funding of popular programme so that hundreds of students can complete their courses

• Axing the Latin excellence scheme: a classic mistake

State school pupils taking GCSE Latin may be forced to drop the subject or even have to teach themselves after the government ends funding for a popular programme that has increased the numbers learning Latin across England.

School leaders, scholars and authors are urging the Department for Education to offer a reprieve to the Latin excellenceprogramme, to enable hundreds of students to complete their GCSE courses and allow schools time to find additional support.

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Almost 900 weapons seized in a year at Yorkshire young offender institution

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Weapons such as sharpened objects and rocks taken from children aged 15-18 at YOI Wetherby

Almost 900 weapons were seized in one year from children detained in a young offender institution in the north of England, a prisons watchdog has found.

In its annual report published on Friday into HM young offender institution Wetherby in West Yorkshire, the institution’s independent monitoring board found that children were in possession of a range of improvised weapons. The children told IMB they carried the weapons because they felt unsafe behind bars.

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Family of former Leicester City owner killed in helicopter crash sue makers for £2.15bn

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Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s relatives demand compensation from Italian firm Leonardo six years after his death

The family of Leicester City’s former owner, who was killed in a helicopter crash outside the club’s stadium in 2018, have launched a lawsuit against the company which made the aircraft.

Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s family are suing the Italian aerospace and defence company Leonardo SpA for £2.15bn – the largest fatal accident claim in English history, according to the family’s lawyers.

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