'Uncertainty' over funding for Worcester children's hospices
"Children's hospices deserve financial security, not this uncertainty," she said.Her fellow Green Party councillor Karen Lewing agreed and said the issue was "about compassion".She added: "When local families are facing the unimaginable, they need to know that care will be there – not just this year, but every year."That means proper funding, guaranteed by the government."
The charity, which runs hospices in Worcester, Walsall and Birmingham, previously said it could be forced to cut services without further support.Acorns received £2.2m from the Children's Hospice Grant but said the money would run out in March 2026, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.The hospice recently revealed an artwork of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, which was made entirely using the handprints of children who were dying or seriously ill.The painting, called Hands for Hope, was created as part of its urgent call for further financial support from the government.
'Sustainable funding'
Chief executive Trevor Johnson said Acorns feared it could be forced to turn away seriously ill children for the first time in its 37-year history."One thing is certain, without this funding we will have to cut services," he added."Our message to the Prime Minister and the government is simple - it's now in your hands who has the power to ensure that all children's hospices, including Acorns, receive long-term sustainable funding."The government said in November hospices would get help to cope in the face of rising National Insurance costs and a drop in government funding.In December, it said hospices in England would receive £100m of government funding over two years to improve end-of-life care.
This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
My message to doctors, after five days of strikes? Work with us: if you go to war with us, you'll lose
As five days of strike action by resident doctors come to an end, the BMA has written asking me to return to the negotiating table. I've responded, with the irony of their letter being that I never left the table. We are back to where we were two weeks ago, when I sat down in good faith and offered to work intensively with them over a few weeks to negotiate a package of measures that would make a real difference in meeting the costs of doctors' training, the costs associated with being a doctor and the lack of promotion opportunities. The only difference between now and a fortnight ago is the damage that the BMA has done to the NHS through its reckless strike action. Thanks to the hard work of NHS leaders and the heroic efforts of frontline staff who stepped up, including many resident doctors who showed up for work, the disruption was not as bad as it might have been. We managed to protect more operations and procedures than in previous years, and our accident and emergency response times improved during the period of strike action. But I do not want for a moment to play down the real impact of strike action on patients. The BMA has made no bones about the fact that it wanted to do damage to the progress we are making on cutting waiting lists and waiting times, and use the suffering of patients as leverage against the government. It cannot duck the consequences of its actions now. On Saturday, I spoke to a patient whose kidney cancer surgery has been postponed by a month until the end of August. I rang him personally to apologise because, having been through kidney cancer myself, I know exactly how it feels to wait, and the impact the fear and anxiety has on our families and close friends. It was just one of countless examples of cancer care that was affected, not to mention many other operations, appointments and procedures. We are still counting the costs of strike action on patients and stretched NHS budgets – budgets that doctors are relying on to deliver real improvements to their working conditions, as well as to patient care. Doctors are not the only staff I am responsible for in the NHS. The Royal College of Nursing will shortly publish a survey of its members and, without having seen the results, I have spent enough time with our nurses to know that they have not felt valued by the previous government and they are looking to Labour to deliver meaningful change to their profession. The GMB union has made similar representations on behalf of paramedics. Unite returned a negative ballot this week. Unison, the largest trade union in the country, knows better than anyone that staff right across the NHS are looking for material improvements to their pay and conditions. Many of them will never earn as much as the lowest-paid doctor. I have committed to work with them through the NHS staff council to make sure that we drive real change for their members, too. None of them have had a pay rise of 28.9%. Only resident doctors can claim to have received the highest pay rise in the public sector two years in a row. No wonder other NHS staff have looked on aghast at the action of the BMA. The BMA's demands, and the speed with which it launched a strike – and a five-day strike at that – have left many other NHS staff, most of them paid far less than doctors, dismayed and appalled. The BMA is now adding jobs to its pay dispute, presumably because its members agree that picking a fight on pay after a 28.9% pay increase is unprecedented and unreasonable, and they are more worried about whether they have jobs to go into. They are right to be concerned, but working with the BMA to address doctor unemployment and career bottlenecks are among a number of things we are able and willing to do to improve the lives of doctors. All I ask of the BMA is two things. The first is to drop this unnecessary and unreasonable rush to strike action. It harms doctors, it harms patients and it is fundamentally self-defeating, because it leaves the NHS with less money to address the issues that doctors care about. The second is to recognise that this government has a responsibility to all NHS staff and, above all, to patients. We can't fix everything for everyone everywhere all at once. Labour didn't break the NHS, nor did the doctors. Patients are looking to us to work together, as a team, to get their NHS back on its feet and build an NHS fit for the future. The past 12 months has shown what this government and the NHS can achieve when we pull together. Waiting lists are at their lowest levels in two years and it feels like the NHS is finally moving in the right direction. It should be clear to the BMA by now that it will lose a war with this government. It's not too late for us both to win the peace. Wes Streeting is secretary of state for health and social care Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Wes Streeting says striking doctors ‘will lose a war with this government'
The doctors union 'will lose a war with this government', Wes Streeting has said, adding that the NHS is ready to tough out a prolonged series of strikes by the British Medical Association (BMA). In his most outspoken comments so far about the dispute involving resident doctors in England, the health secretary vowed that Labour would never give in to their demand for a 29% pay rise. However, in a plea to the BMA, he urged it to agree a deal based on tackling other frustrations those doctors have, separate to their salaries, in which both sides would 'win the peace'. Fresh talks are planned next week. For these to have any chance of success, Streeting said, the BMA should agree it will not call any more strikes and accept that other NHS staff deserve decent pay increases too, not just medics, who are already paid more than many colleagues. 'It should be clear to the BMA by now that they will lose a war with this government. It's not too late for us both to win the peace,' Streeting said in an opinion piece for the Guardian. It comes after the end of a five-day stoppage by thousands of resident doctors that disrupted NHS services including cancer care between last Friday and Wednesday morning. 'All I ask of the BMA is two things. The first is to drop this unnecessary and unreasonable rush to strike action. It mars doctors, it harms patients and it is fundamentally self-defeating because it leaves the NHS with less money to address the issues that doctors care about,' Streeting said. 'The second is to recognise that this government has a responsibility to all NHS staff and, above all, to patients. We can't fix everything for everyone everywhere all at once.' The chances of the negotiations succeeding appear slim. Rejecting a potential deal based on non-pay issues such as doctors being able to access hot food at night and having part of their exam fees covered, a BMA spokesperson said: 'This is still primarily a pay dispute and we don't accept there is no room to budge on pay. We need a credible offer on a path to pay restoration.' The BMA says resident doctors deserve such a hefty pay rise, despite having received an uplift of 22% over the last two years, because the real-terms value of their salaries since 2008 has been heavily eroded. The union has pledged to strike until it achieves 'full pay restoration'. Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan, the co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors committee, insisted that Streeting must find some way of upping their 5.4% pay award for 2025-26. The end of the five-day strike must be 'a moment for the health secretary to reconsider his strategy,' they said. If he does make an undefined 'credible offer' on pay then they said this week's walkout – the 12th by resident and formerly resident doctors since 2023 – could be their last. In Streeting's article, he also: Accused the BMA of causing 'damage' to the NHS through its 'reckless' long walkout. Claimed it deliberately sought to ruin through strikes the NHS's effort to cut its 7.4m-strong backlog of care, which Labour has pledged to eradicate by 2029. Said the BMA's 29% demand and strike had left other NHS staff 'dismayed and appalled'. Streeting, a kidney cancer survivor, related how he had spoken last weekend to a patient with the same disease whose operation was postponed until late next month because of the strike. Patients whose care had to be rescheduled ended up with 'fear and anxiety' as a result, he stressed. In remarks that may be interpreted as implying the BMA's 29% demand is greedy, Streeting pointed out that other health unions such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unison were unhappy with their members' pay award – of 3.6% – but were not seeking the same huge uplift as the BMA and were not engaged in the same 'rush' to industrial action. The RCN will on Thursday publish the outcome of an indicative vote it has run among nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is already known to have resulted in a majority coming out against the 3.6% award. Hospital bosses have made clear to the BMA that it must accept what Streeting has repeatedly insisted and that resident doctors will not force him to give a bigger pay award for this year. Rory Deighton, the acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS hospital trusts, said: 'After a week of disruption to services, health leaders will be pleased that the BMA wants to resume talks. But it has to recognise the red lines set by the government, as the NHS must live within its means. 'We hope that this [exchange of letters] marks the beginning of a dialogue that can resolve this issue without further walkouts which would only see patients end up suffering the most.'
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
BMA has ‘squandered the goodwill' of Government
Resident doctors have squandered the 'considerable goodwill' they had with Government after staging five days of strikes across England, the Health Secretary has said. Wes Streeting said he 'never left' the negotiating table, and that he is willing to meet with the resident doctors committee of the British Medical Association (BMA) to resume talks in their ongoing dispute over pay and working conditions. The Cabinet minister said following previous talks, he had outlined a package that 'could bring an end to this dispute', but he accused the union of 'rushing' to strike. In a letter to BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan, Mr Streeting said: 'Thank you for your letter of 29 July inviting me to get back to the negotiation table, which is ironic because I never left. 'I am ready to continue the conversation from where you left it. 'As I made clear last week, the decision taken by your committee to proceed with strike action over the past five days was deeply disappointing and entirely unnecessary given the seemingly promising discussions we had to explore areas where we could make substantive improvements to doctors' working lives. 'My letter to your committee, drafted following extensive engagement with you both, outlined a path to agreeing a package that could bring an end to this dispute. 'Had you and your committee not rushed to strike, we would be in the second of the 3 weeks I asked for to work intensively together to improve the working lives of your members.' Mr Streeting acknowledged a second dispute raised by the BMA about a lack of training places for doctors, but said this could have been 'avoided'. He went on: 'The consequences of your strike action have been a detrimental impact on patients, your members, your colleagues and the NHS, which might have been worse were it not for the considerable efforts of NHS leaders and front-line staff who stepped up. 'Your action has also been self-defeating, because you have squandered the considerable goodwill you had with me and this government. 'I cannot in good conscience let patients, or other NHS staff, pay the price for the costs of your decision.' He reiterated that the Government 'cannot move on pay', but is 'prepared to negotiate on areas related to your conditions at work, career progression and tangible measures which would put money in your members' pockets'. Mr Streeting added: 'My door remains open to the hope that we can still build the partnership with resident doctors I aspired to when I came in a year ago and, in that spirit, I am happy to meet with you early next week.' In a statement, the co-chairs of the committee said: 'Resident doctors want this to have been their last strike. We are asking Mr Streeting to leave the political rhetoric behind and put the future of the NHS first. 'He could have prevented strike action if he had made a credible offer last week, instead of what we got: the offer of more talks. Now is the time to get serious. 'We're glad to hear Mr Streeting is open to new talks. Let's make them count.' Details on the number of appointments, procedures and operations postponed as a result are expected to be published later this week. It is expected that fewer patients were affected compared to previous strikes after hospitals were ordered to press ahead with as much pre-planned care as possible during the walkout across England, which ended at 7am on Wednesday. In previous walkouts, the majority of non-urgent care was postponed. Strikes across various NHS staff groups between 2022 and 2024 led to 1.5 million cancellations. And hospital leaders said that fewer resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, took to picket lines in the latest walkout compared to those which took place previously. NHS officials have said cancelled bookings would be rescheduled within two weeks, but warned of knock-on impacts for other patients.
