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Starmer says Labour would zone in on the biggest killers.
He says it would get heart attacks and strokes down by a quarter within a decade.
Continue reading...Family of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had heart attack at home five minutes from hospital in Wrexham
A 58-year-old woman died alone curled up in a blanket on the floor of her bedroom as she waited more than five hours for an ambulance.
Relatives of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had a heart attack at her home in Wrexham, north Wales, only a short drive away from a hospital, but died before an ambulance reached her.
Continue reading...Signs that NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating surge in people resorting to private care
Patients are paying up to £550 an hour to see private GPs amid frustration at the delays many face getting an appointment with an NHS family doctor.
Growing numbers of paid-for GP services are opening up across Britain, in the latest sign of how the NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating a surge in people resorting to private healthcare.
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt’s freeze on allowances and thresholds will put a quarter of teachers and one-eighth of nurses in 40% income tax bracket
One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government’s record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people – one in five of all taxpayers – who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury’s attempt to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sector’s staffing crisis will have knock-on effect on whole NHS system, warns healthcare leader
UK ministers must set out how to recruit and retain thousands more mental health nurses to plug the profession’s biggest staff shortage, healthcare leaders are warning.
Mental health nurses account for nearly a third of all nursing vacancies across England, resulting in overstretched services that are struggling to deliver timely care, according to research carried out by the NHS Confederation’s mental health network.
Continue reading...BMA says consultant pay has declined by 35% since 2008-9
Senior doctors in England are to vote on whether to strike amid the continued row over pay in healthcare, as teachers’ unions also plan to hold a ballot for industrial action.
The ballot will open on Monday until 27 June as the British Medical Association urges members to approve.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Victim speaks of feeling violated by hospital doctor incident that expert says is evidence of ‘systemic’ flaw in England
The confidentiality of NHS medical records has been thrown into doubt after a “stalker” hospital doctor accessed and shared highly sensitive information about a woman who had started dating her ex-boyfriend, despite not being involved in her care.
The victim was left in “fear, shock and horror” when she learned that the doctor had used her hospital’s medical records system to look at the woman’s GP records and read – and share – intimate details, known only to a few people, about her and her children.
Continue reading...Pat Cullen raises stakes in dispute with government after nurses reject earlier offer of 5%
The head of the Royal College of Nursing union has called for a double-digit pay rise for nurses in England, raising the stakes in the long-running dispute with the government.
Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN, had previously told members to accept the government’s offer of 5% in March but it was rejected in a vote by 54% to 46%.
Continue reading...NHS in England missed target that patients waiting 18 months for an operation would be treated by April
A key government pledge to reduce the size of the NHS’s record-breaking care backlog has been broken, the health secretary has admitted.
Steve Barclay slipped out the news in a Commons statement on Tuesday about a totally unrelated area of NHS policy – his new plan to improve access to GP care.
Continue reading...Hospitals chief says action ‘will pile even more pressure’ on already overstretched services and calls for talks
Ambulance staff in the south-east of England are to strike over pay for the second time on Tuesday, prompting warnings from hospital bosses of further pressure on overstretched emergency services.
Members of the Unite trade union employed by two ambulance trusts are striking after rejecting the government’s pay offer of a lump sum cash payment for 2022-23 and a below inflation increase of 5% for 2023-24.
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James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has also been giving interviews this morning. He told Sky News that Keir Starmer would have “some serious questions to answer” if today’s Cabinet Office report says she started talks about taking a job with Labour while still working with the civil service team giving advice to the privileges committee in relation to its inquiry into Boris Johnson and Partygate.
Labour sources have told the Telegraph that Gray was not involved in the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team’s (PET’s) work with the privileges committee while she was in contact with Labour.
Continue reading...RCN leader urges health secretary to resolve ongoing pay dispute as one-day strike affects cancer and emergency care for first time
Parliamentary security guards confiscated reports and leaflets about Hong Kong from attenders of an event in Westminster in case they caused political upset, Kiran Stacey and Tom Burgis write, in a move condemned by a senior Conservative MP as “completely daft”.
Officers on the parliamentary estate forced people attending a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong last Monday to hand over copies of a report by the group about press freedom there, as well as leaflets campaigning for the release of the media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
This is a culmination of our pay not reflecting the hours we are working. The last decade has made things considerably worse. Our colleagues are out in force because things have got so bad that we cannot pay our rent or our bills, we are relying on food banks.
We have spent the last few years fighting the pandemic. It matters to us and the care we provide matters to us. The fact the government are not looking at our pay has caused us to do this.
It’s a profession that I love, I love caring for people, and when I started the job it was not like this. The money was small, but it was sufficient, and we were proud of being a nurse.
The definition of nursing is about caring for people and making them comfortable if they are at the end of their lives, but how is that possible when there is one nurse having to look after 10 patients at a time because we’re short-staffed?
How am I supposed to live? If I don’t pay my council tax, they take me to court, or if I don’t pay my rent, I lose my home. At 70, I’m still working; what life is that?
They are clapping for us but refuse to pay us properly. If they (politicians) were here, I would tell them to their faces.
Continue reading...Nurses union head clashes with Steve Barclay over plans to protect patients and RMT rows with Mark Harper about striking on eve of Eurovision final
The Royal College of Nursing has clashed with the government over whether sufficient exemptions have been made to protect patient safety during the nurses’ strike in England that started on Sunday evening.
The clash came as a row erupted between the leader of the train drivers’ union and the transport secretary, who had criticised a planned strike on the eve of the Eurovision song contest final for its impact on Ukraine.
Continue reading...Two trusts and one children’s hospital to receive emergency nursing staff after RCN had said there would be no derogations
The Royal College of Nurses appears to have U-turned on its decision to allow no exemptions to hospitals during this weekend’s strike action, with nurses now due to work in an emergency capacity in dozens of hospitals across England.
Nurses will be working across several NHS trusts – including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust, in London, and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust – in wards including intensive care and A&E. This is despite the RCN vowing when strike action was announced that exemptions would not be made for any hospitals.
Continue reading...Move is apparently designed to isolate the Royal College of Nursing, which is due to begin another strike
Ministers plan to impose a pay deal on NHS workers even as nurses continue to reject it, the Observer understands, as health service unions prepare to hold crunch talks on the package this week.
Both the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Unite unions continue to oppose the deal offered to NHS workers, after protracted negotiations that have led to strikes and hampered attempts to shorten waiting lists. All 12 unions involved in the talks will gather on Tuesday to vote on whether to accept an improved deal covering the last two years.
Continue reading...Health service bosses say patient safety could be at risk when nurses in England stage 28-hour stoppage from Sunday evening
An NHS leader has urged the Royal College of Nursing to let striking nurses leave picket lines and go back to work in their hospital if emergencies occur during their strike this weekend.
Matthew Taylor made the appeal as the NHS braced itself for renewed disruption to services as a result of the first strike by nurses since they rejected the government’s improved pay offer.
Continue reading...Hundreds of people were told to make own way through ongoing fighting to airbase north of Khartoum
NHS doctors and British nationals faced a treacherous route to reach an airbase north of Khartoum before a deadline for evacuations, amid ongoing airstrikes and artillery fire in the Sudanese capital.
Hundreds of people were told to find their own way to an evacuation centre at the Wadi Seidna airbase, about 14 miles (20km) north of Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman. They had to navigate ongoing fighting as the Sudanese Armed Forces continued to attack positions across the two cities, while members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hid among civilian buildings.
Continue reading...Deputy PM to chair Cobra meeting on security situation in Khartoum as UK government prepares to end flights
The deadline for British nationals to reach the evacuation airfield in Sudan has passed as the government prepares to cease flights out of the country within hours.
The deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, will chair a Cobra meeting on Saturday afternoon to discuss the security situation in Khartoum in advance of the final flight taking off at 6pm UK time.
Continue reading...Government announces end to airlifts amid calls for NHS doctors without UK passports to be rescued
British nationals trapped in Sudan have until midday on Saturday local time to get on a flight before they stop, ministers have announced, as a doctors’ union called for NHS medics without UK passports to also be airlifted.
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, said on Friday night more than 1,500 people had been flown out, and there had been a “significant decline in British nationals coming forward”, meaning it was time to end the operation.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Health secretary trying to ‘wear down’ NHS nurses rather than negotiating, RCN general secretary to tell high court
Steve Barclay will be accused of wasting taxpayers’ money by pursuing striking nurses through the courts when the government seeks on Thursday to shorten their industrial action due to start on Sunday evening.
In a witness statement to be heard in the high court, Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing’s general secretary, will say the health and social care secretary is trying to “wear down” nurses through legal action.
Continue reading...