Unison members to take industrial action on 11 and 23 January in dispute over pay and staffing
Ambulance workers across England will stage two further strikes on 11 and 23 January in the dispute over pay and staffing, Unison has announced.
Members of the union in five ambulance services in England will take industrial action.
Continue reading...Environment Agency under fire for extending schedule for tackling pollution in rivers, lakes and coastal waters to 2063
Targets to clean up the majority of England’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters suffering from a cocktail of agricultural and sewage pollution have been pushed back from 2027 to 2063.
Not one English waterway, including rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters is in good ecological and chemical health at present, with pollution from water treatment plants and agriculture the key sources of the damage. The Environment Agency said on Thursday £5.3bn was being invested for the next five years to stop the further deterioration of waterways.
Continue reading...Ambulance workers and other NHS staff strike for between 12 and 24 hours in England and Wales
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Barclay is doubling down on his refusal to negotiate on pay and told staff struggling now that they should “look forward” to next year’s pay process.
We’re already three quarters of the way through this year. So, what you’d be saying is, go all the way back retrospectively to April to unpick what has been an independent decision by the pay review body.
But we’re already now under way in terms of next year’s pay review process, the remit letters have gone out.
It took place in February and the world was a rather different place in February and therefore I think some of the evidence they considered was probably out of date by the time it was published. Because the process is very slow, the decision is a bit lagged.
I think [ministers] should ask the pay review body to reconsider what they did last year, and not reopen last year, because I think it’s too late to do that, but actually say I want you to do a very quick turnaround for this year’s recommendations and I want you to take account on anything you might have missed last time round.
No, it reflects the very different action we’ve seen from these trade unions – the GMB, Unite and Unison – compared to what we saw from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), where we agreed national exemptions in terms of what would be covered by the RCN, whereas the three unions striking today have refused to work with us on a national level.
Life and limb cover will be provided. The last thing that our members want to do is put patients in harm’s way … The government has to play their part, they have to come to the table and talk to us. Our members want a resolution to this.
Continue reading...Bodies representing NHS care in England also call for Rishi Sunak intervention but PM refuses to budge on pay
NHS leaders have urged the public to avoid risky activity on Wednesday for fear they may be left helpless and unable to reach A&E during the ambulance strike.
The industrial action by staff across England and Wales comes as the ongoing pay dispute between ministers and NHS workers looks poised to descend into an increasingly bitter and disruptive war of attrition that could go on for months.
Continue reading...Charity documents experiences of some of England’s 121,000 children housed in temporary accommodation
Children in temporary accommodation are living in cramped conditions and alongside former prisoners, in hostels up to 55 miles away from school, according to a leading housing charity.
One 16-year-old from Manchester, who is sharing a single room in an emergency B&B with her mother and two sisters, described having to study sitting on the toilet, her textbook propped on her knees, to revise for GCSEs. “It’s so cold in there my legs go numb after 10 minutes,” she said.
Continue reading...Tuesday’s strike goes ahead as Royal College of Nursing highlights low pay
Nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland went on strike on Tuesday in an ongoing dispute with the government about pay and concerns about patient safety.
Up to 100,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) took part after it balloted its members in October. It has said that low pay is the cause of chronic understaffing that is putting patients at risk and leaving NHS staff overworked.
Continue reading...Patients with serious conditions and injuries will have to get themselves to A&E, NHS chiefs say
Thousands of patients who have had strokes, heart attacks or broken bones will have to get themselves to A&E on Wednesday when ambulance staff strike over pay, NHS bosses have warned.
The disruption is expected to last for up to three days, with crews not reaching some patients who called 999 on Wednesday until Thursday or Friday.
Continue reading...Data suggests private tenants almost three times as likely to be exposed to damp as social housing tenants
Almost a quarter of private rentals in England fail to meet the decent home standards, government figures have revealed, meaning they pose a risk to health, are in disrepair, have poor facilities, or are poorly insulated.
Data from the English Housing Survey, released on Thursday, highlights the poor state of the country’s private rental sector, with 23% of private rentals failing to meet the decent homes standard in 2021-22. That compares with just 13% of owner-occupied homes, and 10% of social housing.
Continue reading...OfS expected to gain new powers to regulate freedom of speech issues in England
The Office for Students will make freedom of speech and “off-limits” subjects on university campuses one of its top priorities for next year, despite the regulator receiving only around 60 complaints over the last four years.
Susan Lapworth, the OfS’s chief regulator, said students’ experience of higher education in England was “not just measured through statistics,” and could be affected by the attitudes towards issues such as freedom of speech at the institutions they attend.
Continue reading...Labour highlights issue to back up pledge to invest heavily in addressing shortages
The number of operations cancelled by the NHS in England because of staff shortages may have doubled in three years, with an estimated 30,000 not proceeding because no staff were available to perform them.
At least a third of cancelled operations were those that were deemed urgent, according to the analysis by Labour. It suggested at least 2,500 cancelled operations for cancer patients and 8,000 on children.
Continue reading...Serious illnesses among estimated 5m people in England who could not get an appointment in October may have been missed
Millions of people in England are struggling to get GP appointments and as a result some will not have serious medical conditions diagnosed until it is “too late”, Labour has warned.
The party has made new estimates based on the latest GP appointment figures for England with GP patient survey data.
Continue reading...Officers say no one was at England footballer’s Leatherhead home when jewellery and watches stolen
Jewellery and watches were among items stolen at the Surrey home of the England footballer Raheem Sterling in a burglary that forced the winger to return to the UK from the World Cup in Qatar.
Surrey police confirmed they were investigating a burglary at a property in Oxshott, Leatherhead, after Sterling missed England’s win against Senegal in the knockout stages of the tournament on Sunday due to a “family matter”.
Continue reading...Over 10% of early years providers say they will close if energy bill relief scheme not extended, survey reveals
Seven in 10 nurseries and preschools in England will have no option but to increase their fees without additional financial support from the government towards rising energy costs, according to a survey.
The sector is warning the energy crisis could be “a nail in the coffin” for many settings, with more than one in 10 saying they will be forced to close permanently without an extension to the government’s energy bill relief scheme.
Continue reading...Thousands of prisoners still serving indefinite sentences in England and Wales, even for low-level crime
Dominic Raab is being urged to show mercy to prisoners in England and Wales who remain jailed under a sentencing scheme abolished 10 years ago.
The imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence was a form of indeterminate sentence in which offenders were given a minimum jail tariff but no maximum for a range of crimes. Nearly 3,000 legacy prisoners remain in jail under the scheme.
Continue reading...There is a buzz in the air of the capital and a real belief the Lions of Teranga can beat the Three Lions
Just under 4,500 miles (7,200km) away from the shiny stadiums in Qatar, a man named Serigne Fallou confidently proclaims that he already knows what the result will be on Sunday when England take on Senegal in the World Cup’s round of 16.
“Absolutely, Senegal will win, 1-0,” says Fallou, an apartment doorman in Dakar, Senegal’s bustling capital on the Atlantic Ocean. “I don’t have a doubt.”
Continue reading...Head of Royal College of Emergency Medicine says lengthy waits forcing ambulances to be ‘wards on wheels’
More than 200 people who died last week in England are estimated to have been affected by problems with urgent and emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
Dr Adrian Boyle, who is also a consultant in emergency medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a failure to address problems discharging patients to social care was a “massive own goal”.
Continue reading...Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts
Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.
The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.
Continue reading...Campaigners urge policymakers to act on ‘cycle of poverty’ entrapping generations of British muslims
Campaigners have urged policymakers to act on the “cycle of poverty” entrapping generations of British Muslims, as the latest census shows that 39% of Muslims are now living in the most deprived areas of England and Wales.
The proportion of people who identify as Muslim has risen by 1.2 million in 10 years, bringing the Muslim population to 3.9 million in 2021, the census shows. Overall, Muslims now make up 6.5% of the population in England and Wales, up from 4.9% in 2011.
Continue reading...Raising maintenance loans in England in line with forecasts, not actual inflation, could cause ‘significant hardship this winter’
England’s poorest students will be more than £1,000 worse off this academic year than the last, according to a new analysis that warns of “significant hardship for many this winter”.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the reduction – which means students from the poorest families will be £125 out of pocket each month – is due to the falling value of maintenance loans, which students take out to cover their living costs.
Continue reading...Tory-led Essex authority is on brink of bankruptcy and has appealed to government for emergency bailout
A Tory-led council has admitted a series of disastrous investments in risky commercial projects caused it to run up an unprecedented deficit of nearly £500m and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.
The staggering scale of the catastrophe at Thurrock council in Essex – one of the biggest ever financial disasters in local government – is contained in an internal report made to the council’s cabinet, which reveals it has lost £275m on investments it made in solar energy and other businesses, and has set aside a further £130m this year to pay back investment debts.
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