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NHS faces prospect of biggest walkout in its history
Health leaders have expressed “huge concern” as the NHS faces potentially the biggest day of strike action in its history next month. Thousands of ambulance workers and nurses are set to strike on the same day in February, as the pay dispute between health workers and the government shows no signs of reaching a resolution. But the Prime Minister insisted that ministers want “construction dialogue” with unions.
Yesterday, the GMB union said more than 10,000 ambulance workers – including paramedics, emergency care assistants and call handlers – will stage strikes on 6 February, 20 February, 6 March and 20 March. Nurses are also due to strike on 6 February – meaning mass disruption can be expected across the NHS on that day. Nurses will also strike the following day, 7 February.
It is the first time both ambulance staff and the Royal College of Nursing have acted on the same day. The escalation in industrial action comes as thousands of nurses went on strike yesterday and today at more than 55 NHS trusts in England. PA
Ex-minister who criticised Brexit trade deal latest Tory to quit
Former cabinet minister George Eustice has become the latest Conservative to announce plans to stand down as an MP at the next general election. The former environment secretary had spoken out against the “not very good” post-Brexit trade deal he helped push through after leaving cabinet last year.
Mr Eustice said he will not be challenging to retain the seat of Camborne and Redruth, in Cornwall, so he can pursue a “final career outside politics”. He follows more than a dozen senior Tories and rising stars in announcing their exit plans from the Commons at the general election expected in 2024.
Their moves come as Rishi Sunak struggles to recover from dire polling, which currently puts Labour more than 20 points clear, with many Tories despondent about the chances of winning the next election. Mr Eustice, a former ally of David Cameron who served under Boris Johnson, has held his seat since 2010. At the last general election in 2019 he won a comfortable 8,700 majority over second-placed Labour.
BBC revises plans to reduce local radio after ‘feedback’
The BBC has amended some of its proposed plans for local radio programme sharing across the UK, announcing extra shows and revised pairings of stations. In October, the BBC proposed local
radio stations share more content and broadcast less programming unique to their areas, as part of its new strategy to create a “modern, digital-led” broadcaster.
The proposition was to see local programming restricted to weekdays before 2pm with the BBC planning to produce 18 afternoon programmes across England that will be shared between its 39 local radio stations. Yesterday, the corporation announced it is increasing the proposed number of afternoon and weekend programmes and revising proposed pairings of stations following “feedback from staff and audiences”.
The number of afternoon weekday programmes between 2pm and 6pm will increase from 18 to 20, it said. The announced amendments will also see the number of weekend daytime shows between 10am and 2pm on Saturday and Sunday mornings go up from the proposed 12 programmes to 18, the BBC said. PA
Boy, 15, convicted of murdering shopper after Asda toilet row
A 15-year-old has been convicted of murdering a software engineer, stabbed in the chest after a row at an Asda supermarket. Ian Kirwan, 53, was killed after challenging a group of youths for “messing about” in the toilets at a store in Redditch, Worcestershire, on 8 March last year.
Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court cleared three other youths – two aged 14 and one aged 16 – of murder and manslaughter but found them guilty of violent disorder. A fifth boy, aged 16, was acquitted of murder, manslaughter and violent disorder, having claimed he was not involved in the fatal confrontation and could not have predicted it.
High Court judge Mr Justice Fraser told the 15-year-old who was convicted of murder that he would be given the children’s equivalent of a life sentence at a hearing on 15 February.
Girl, 16, found dead on ‘filthy puppy pads’ was nearly 23 stone
A 16-year-old girl who died after becoming morbidly obese in lockdown and lived in conditions “unfit for any animal” was seriously neglected by her parents, a court has been told. Kaylea Titford weighed 22 stone and 13 lbs, with a body mass index of 70, when she died in October 2020 at her home in Newtown, Powys, Wales, where she was found lying in soiled clothing and bed linen, Mold Crown Court heard yesterday.
Her mother Sarah Lloyd-Jones, 39, admits manslaughter by gross negligence but her father Alun Titford, 45, denies the offence, the jury was told. Opening Titford’s trial, Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, said Kaylea had spina bifida, a back condition and hydrocephalus, a build up of fluid on the brain, and used a wheelchair from a young age.
She attended Newtown High School, where she was described as “funny and chatty” by staff, but became confined to her home after the coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020, Ms Rees said. Kaylea was living in “squalor and degradation”, she said, and when paramedics found her dead she was lying on filthy “puppy pads”, with maggots and flies on her body and milk bottles filled with urine around her bed.
On the morning of 10 October 2020, the court heard, a 999 call was made by Mr Titford’s mother before paramedics attended and found Kaylea’s body. Police officers noted an “unbearable” rotting smell and maggots crawling on the bed, the jury was told. Mr Titford, of Colwyn, Newtown, denies manslaughter by gross negligence and an alternative charge of causing or allowing the death of a child. The trial, which is expected to last up to four weeks, continues today. PA
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