Drug dealer, 34, convicted of killing little girl when he burst into her family home in Liverpool last August
Cheryl Korbel, Olivia’s mother, is presently reading her personal statement before the court.
“One thing I miss most is hearing her say ‘mum’, I just miss hearing her voice, it’s just so quiet,” she said tearfully. “It’s so very lonely without her, everything is just so quiet, I can’t cope with the silence.”
Continue reading...Lib Dems call for Thérèse Coffey to resign after raw discharges sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year
Keir Starmer has accused the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer”, as data showed raw discharges were sent into English rivers 825 times a day last year.
Private water companies have been consistently accused of failing to take action, and the Environment Agency admitted there were more than 300,000 spillages into rivers and coastal areas in 2022, lasting for more than 1.75m hours.
Continue reading...Department of Health and Social Care in England has removed 269,500 pallets of PPE from its stock
The government has disposed of more than 3bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) it bought during the pandemic, figures have revealed.
An estimated 3.14bn items have been shed through a mixture of recycling, energy from waste processes – including some incineration – donations and sales.
Continue reading...Authors say supported mindfulness-based cognitive therapy also cheaper than treatment NHS usually offers
Practising mindfulness is much better than taking part in talking therapies at helping people recover from depression, a British study has found.
People who used a mindfulness self-help book for eight weeks and had six sessions with a counsellor experienced a 17.5% greater improvement in recovery from depressive symptoms than those who underwent cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) while being supported by a mental health practitioner.
Continue reading...Exclusive: workplace plan sent to ministers says deficit will rise rapidly from current 154,000 if current trends continue
The NHS in England needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis that could leave it short of 571,000 staff, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.
A long-awaited workforce plan produced by NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.
Continue reading...Sleet and snow expected across southern England and south Wales as hail showers will affect Scotland’s northern coasts
Bristol airport has temporarily grounded all flights due to heavy snowfall in the area.
In a statement posted on social media, the airport said it was suspending flights until 11am.
Continue reading...Change in parents’ work patterns since Covid may have led to pupils staying home
Schools in England are seeing “a huge amount” of pupil absence on Fridays with children staying at home with their parents following a shift in attitudes post-Covid, MPs have been told.
Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, told the education committee that persistent absence from schools is “one of the issues of our age” and called for a “razor sharp focus” on the problem.
Continue reading...Temperatures could plummet to -15c in some sheltered Scottish areas with snow cutting off some rural areas
Tuesday night could be the coldest this year so far, the Met Office has warned, with fears that Arctic air could cut off some rural communities and cause power and transport chaos.
Temperatures could fall as low as -15c in some sheltered Scottish areas, with locations that have seen snowfall especially vulnerable.
Continue reading...Analysis for Friends of the Earth also finds lower-income areas have far fewer trees than wealthier ones
Nearly half of English neighbourhoods have less than 10% tree cover, with lower-income areas having far fewer trees than wealthier ones, analysis has found.
England’s tree cover is just 12.8%, according to the research by Friends of the Earth, with only 10% made up by woodland – paling in comparison with the EU, where woodland cover stands at 38%.
Continue reading...Government’s long-awaited plan promises thousands more specialist school places and new national standards
Services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England are to be “transformed”, with the introduction of new national standards and thousands more specialist school places, ministers have announced.
The long-awaited changes are being introduced to end the postcode lottery that families currently face and ensure that children and young people with Send get “high-quality, early support” wherever they live, the government says.
Continue reading...Of 33 councils polled, 18 reported a decline in the proportion of families getting their first preference
Thousands of 10 and 11-year-olds have failed to get into their first choice of secondary school as offers were made across England, but the expected increase in demand for year 7 places in some big cities once again failed to materialise.
There were predictions that the proportion of children awarded a place at their top choice could hit a record low nationally this year as a result of a baby boom 11 years ago, but in London and Birmingham the number of applications and success rates were similar to last year.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves tasks chancellor with finding money to double England’s doctor and nurse training places
Rachel Reeves has challenged Jeremy Hunt to find the money for Labour’s plan to double training places for doctors and nurses – pointing out he said he wanted to “nick” the opposition’s policy just two weeks before becoming chancellor.
The shadow chancellor said NHS shortages were causing 1.5 million people in need of medical treatment to say their work was suffering, with new analysis showing it was costing the economy about £700m a year.
Continue reading...Offering places by proximity results in selection of pupils from more affluent households, say researchers
Disadvantaged children are suffering “geographic exclusion” from England’s best state schools because they cannot afford to live near those with the best exam results, according to new research published by the University of Bristol.
The research found that very few state secondary schools give priority to pupils who qualify for free school meals, despite the government’s admissions rules being redesigned more than eight years ago allowing them to do so.
Continue reading...Teachers in north of England to strike on Tuesday followed by members in other regions over course of three days
Tens of thousands of teachers will strike this week resulting in the closure of some schools as members of the National Education Union (NEU) take part in three days of industrial action.
With little sign of a solution to the dispute on the horizon, teachers in the north of England will strike on Tuesday, followed by members in the Midlands and eastern regions on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Dispatchers tell investigation it is common to worry: ‘How many people are we going to kill today?’
Ambulance call handlers suffer anxiety about how many people will die before they can get help to them each day, researchers looking into the welfare of NHS staff have found.
Officials from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) in England asked staff working in urgent and emergency care, including in A&E, NHS 111 call handling centres and ambulance services, for their experiences as part of wider research into NHS care.
Continue reading...Home Builders Federation warns planning policy changes will result in government meeting less than half its annual target
Housebuilding in England is due to fall to its lowest level since the second world war, according to an analysis by the Home Builders Federation (HBF), owing to a range of government policies that threaten to dramatically slow development.
The study says the supply of new housing is likely to fall below 120,000 homes annually over the coming years, less than half of the government’s target, as a result of changes to planning policy and what developers say is over-strict enforcement of environmental regulations.
Continue reading...Judge finds Natasha King liable for unintentional injuries suffered by Dani Czernuszka in amateur game
A rugby player who was paralysed from the waist down after a “reckless” tackle has won her high court claim against the opposing player who made the “red mist” challenge.
In October 2017, Dani Czernuszka suffered a spinal fracture during an amateur league rugby match that has since left her having to use a wheelchair.
Continue reading...Academics may face dismissal if relations involving romance, sex or financial dependency are not reported
Universities in England could face sanctions if intimate relationships between staff and the students they have academic responsibilities for are not disclosed, under plans by the higher education watchdog.
Academics who refuse to report relationships with their students that involve sexual activity, romantic intimacy or financial dependency, should be dismissed, the Office for Students (OfS) has proposed.
Continue reading...Some state schools had to close down permanently due to extensive safety concerns
At least 39 state schools in England have been forced to close either partially or entirely in the last three years because one or more buildings have been deemed unsafe, the government has confirmed.
In three cases, concerns about building safety were so extensive that the entire school site had to be closed down permanently, with pupils moved off-site to alternative accommodation.
Continue reading...Ten of thousands to take part in industrial action in escalation of row between NHS staff and government
Hundreds of thousands of operations and medical appointments will be cancelled in England next month and progress in tackling the huge care backlog will be derailed as the NHS prepares to face the most widespread industrial action in its history.
Junior doctors are poised to join nurses and ambulance workers in mass continuous walkouts in March after members of the British Medical Association (BMA) voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action.
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