Only ‘urgent’ tests to go ahead in short term after hospitals in south-east London hit by Russian gang’s seizure of data
Patients denied a blood test because of a Russian cyber-attack on the NHS may have to wait up to six months to have their sample taken, the Guardian has learned.
The delays are so long that some patients have decided to pay to have their blood taken and analysed by a private clinic rather than remain on the NHS waiting list.
Continue reading...Company is looking for help from next government to upgrade to less polluting technology
Chinese-owned British Steel has reportedly submitted a request for a package of taxpayer support worth £600m as it looks for assistance from the next government to upgrade to less polluting technology.
Government officials are due to review plans that set out the costs of switching from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces at the company’s steelworks in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, the Sunday Times reported.
Continue reading...After losing his empire in 2022, the lauded host is opening a ‘new world grand cafe’ in London’s Bayswater
This month, Jeremy King will open the Park, an all-day restaurant in Bayswater. It is the second of three big 2024 openings for the lauded restaurateur, who was behind the heydays of some of London’s most celebrated restaurants such as Le Caprice, the Ivy and the Wolseley.
It follows the launch of Arlington in January, King’s modern reboot of Le Caprice, once a favourite with the stars from Diana, Princess of Wales to Mick Jagger. Later in the year he’ll be reviving another stalwart, Simpson’s on the Strand.
Continue reading...Ministers left with unpalatable options of raising tuition fees, making grants or capping student numbers, says IFS
The next government faces “unpalatable” choices between raising tuition fees, making direct grants or capping student numbers to rescue universities in England from their financial black hole, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.
The thinktank said universities that relied on teaching UK students for the bulk of their income were most vulnerable, calculating that undergraduate tuition fees would now be £12,000 if they had kept pace with inflation, rather than the £9,250 rate frozen since 2016.
Continue reading...Exclusive: heads of prisons say they will no longer be able to accept new inmates ‘very soon’ after 4 July election
Prison governors have been warned that jails will be so overcrowded by the second week of July that they will struggle to accept any more inmates, plunging an incoming government into an immediate crisis.
The heads of jails in England and Wales were informed by HM Prison and Probation Service officials earlier this month that data pointed to an “operational capacity breaking point” only days after the 4 July general election.
Continue reading...Institute for Fiscal Studies praised Conservatives’ ambition but said by some measures gap had widened
Progress towards a series of levelling up goals set by the UK government has been “glacial”, and achieving them by the target date of 2030 will require a big increase in resources for struggling areas, a leading thinktank has said.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that, on many measures, regional inequality had widened and the UK had gone into reverse.
The share of pupils in England meeting expected standards at the end of primary school dropped from 65% in 2018–19 to 60% in June 2023, against a target of 90% by 2030. In only 10 English local authorities – all in London – did at least 70% of 11-year-olds meet this target.
The total number of further education and skills courses completed in England fell by 14% between 2018–19 and 2022–23. In the lowest skilled areas, the decline was almost 20%. The goal for 2030 is to have 200,000 more people successfully completing high-quality skills training annually, driven by 80,000 more people completing courses in the lowest skilled areas.
A 21-percentage-point gap in the average employment rate between the best and worst-performing local authority areas in the UK – the widest it has been since at least 2005. The aim is to have rising pay, employment and productivity in every area of the UK, and a smaller gap between the top performing areas and others.
The Conservatives’ aim is for local transport connectivity across England to be significantly closer to the standards of London, but the gap between the use of public transport in London (39% of journeys) and in the rest of the country (7%) during 2022-23 was at its second-widest level since 2002–03, as passenger numbers failed to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
Continue reading...2016 Euros was last tournament where people could travel freely, making it hard to judge how current fans will behave
German police have spoken of concerns about an intelligence gap in the level of aggression of the latest generation of England football fan, as supporters gather in Germany for the first post-Covid Euros.
England’s Sunday evening tie against Serbia in their first game of Euro 2024 has been designated as “high risk” due to a heightened threat of violence between two groups of supporters with a history of thuggery.
Continue reading...Arrest of 57-year-old follows new evidence surfacing during cold case review by Northamptonshire police
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a newborn baby girl who was found in Northampton more than 40 years ago, police said.
The 57-year-old suspect was arrested in Northampton on Tuesday morning and taken to a location in the county for questioning by detectives.
Continue reading...Relatives of motorcyclist killed in 2019 are looking forward to ‘working with next government’ on public inquiry
The parents of Harry Dunn, a teenage motorcyclist killed in a road collision, have accused the US of “obstructing” their son’s inquest, as they said they were looking forward to working with the next Westminster government to establish a public inquiry.
No representative of the US embassy nor the driver responsible, Anne Sacoolas, attended the four-day inquest, which concluded on Thursday, prompting the Dunn family’s spokesperson, Radd Seiger, to say Washington’s position was that “lives of UK citizens like Harry ultimately do not matter”.
Continue reading...Labour is fighting its former candidate in Iain Duncan Smith’s long-held seat, but local residents don’t appear bowled over by their election options
“The Tories really don’t deserve to be in but I’ll struggle to support Labour. I will have to vote. But it will be a struggle to vote.” David Cherry is out walking his dog, Bella, in the spring sunshine in Chingford Green park.
“It’s quite a depressing state, to be honest,” Cherry continues. “Neither of them give you a clear indication. They all talk, we all know nothing’s going to happen.”
Continue reading...Leaders outline ideas including wealth levy, rent controls, house-building, and water and energy firm nationalisation
The Greens have launched their election manifesto with an appeal to voters to help them into parliament as a challenge to what they termed the unambitious, “more of the same” policies of Labour.
Setting out their plans in Brighton and Hove, the location of one of the party’s key target seats, the co-leaders, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, said their proposals for higher taxes – mainly on wealthier people – were the only realistic way to improve public services and undertake vital environmental policies.
Continue reading...Met Office reports tentative signs of building high pressure but forecasts sunny spells and showers for this week
There are tentative signs of high pressure building from the west but cool, wet weather is likely to continue across the UK, forecasters say.
After a cool and windy weekend, Monday and Tuesday will remain cool for the time of year, the Met Office said, although will feel warmer in sheltered sunshine.
Continue reading...Family angered by Anne Sacoolas’s refusal to give evidence in person over motorcyclist’s death in 2019
Harry Dunn’s mother has said she is “unspeakably hurt” that her son’s killer, Anne Sacoolas, has refused to attend the inquest into his death, saying it was “bitterly disappointing and, as a mother, utterly incomprehensible”.
An inquest into Dunn’s death opened on Monday, almost five years after the 19-year-old was killed when his motorcycle collided head-on with a vehicle driven by Sacoolas that was on the wrong side of the road outside a US military based in Northamptonshire in August 2019.
Continue reading...A row between rivals Panini and Topps has meant collectors cannot fill an album with players in their kits from all 24 nations in this year’s tournament
Adding stickers of your favourite players into an album is arguably one of the few innocent pleasures that remain for football fans. But children and seasoned collectors have discovered that even this gentle pastime has been affected by modern football’s passion for money.
The Panini sticker album has been a staple of international tournaments since the 1970s. But after Uefa sold the rights for stickers for Euro 2024 to its American rival Topps, Panini launched an alternative “England 2024” album, using rights held by England, Italy, Germany and France that were not part of Uefa’s deal.
Continue reading...Dame Victoria Sharp says judge was wrong to pause trial after prosecutors said they did not plan to call Georgia Barton as a witness
Joey Barton faces a new criminal trial over an allegation he assaulted his wife, judges at the high court have ruled after proceedings against him were previously paused.
The former footballer was accused of assaulting Georgia Barton in a drunken row – which he denied – and was due to face trial at a magistrates court in 2022.
Continue reading...Increasing numbers of children hungry and lack adequate clothing, with two-thirds of secondary teachers also supporting pupils
Eight in 10 primary schoolteachers in England are spending their own money to buy items for pupils who are increasingly arriving at school hungry and without adequate clothing, according to new research.
Almost a third (31%) of those who took part in the survey said they were seeing more hungry children in class, with 40% reporting an increase in pupils coming in without proper uniform or a warm winter coat, research by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found.
Continue reading...Those with BMI of 35 and a comorbidity can now be prescribed tirzepatide and Nice says it is more effective than Wegovy
The medical treatment regulator for England has approved a second drug to combat obesity, giving patients and doctors what it says is a more effective alternative to semaglutide.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) issued draft guidance on Tuesday recommending that very obese people should be prescribed tirzepatide, which is marketed in the UK as Mounjaro.
Continue reading...Real-terms funding per pupil at 2010 levels, teacher pay at 2001 levels, and building investment 25% below mid-2000s
Spending on each schoolchild’s education in England has suffered an unprecedented 14-year-freeze since the Conservatives came to power, according to Britain’s leading economics thinktank.
Funding per pupil is now at 2010 levels in real terms, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said in its latest analysis of school spending, while teacher pay was at about the same real-terms level as in 2001.
Continue reading...Cecil Farley says implant, which could become standard treatment, means he can still see his wife of 63 years
A 91-year-old man who became the first patient in England to have his sight saved by an artificial layer in his cornea has praised the procedure for allowing him to still see his wife.
Cecil Farley, from Chobham in Surrey, had problems with his right eye for about 15 years before losing his vision. He required a cornea transplant to save his sight but his previous surgery – a graft with a human cornea – failed and doctors warned the next might too. And the shortage of human corneas from deceased donors meant Farley faced a year-long wait.
Continue reading...Law graduate’s murder by Jordan McSweeney in 2022 highlights ‘the crumbling justice system’, jury hears
The family of Zara Aleena, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in east London while walking home after a night out, has been “tortured” by thoughts her “death was preventable” – and that a “crumbling justice system” contributed to it.
As a jury-led inquest into the death of the 35-year-old law graduate opened at Walthamstow coroner’s court on Monday, her aunt Farah Naz, read a statement saying: “Since her death we have been campaigning so that our daughters, sisters, friends can be safe and protected as Zara never was. This is Zara’s legacy.”
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