Plan to boost jobs for newly-qualified nurses and midwives
Health officials said there were 4,000 more nursing and midwifery graduates than vacancies. This is out of a total of 24,870 who have already graduated or are due to over the next six months.New measures would also see some support worker posts be temporarily converted to midwifery roles to create new openings for graduates.The Department of Health said the changes would tackle concerns about jobs after record numbers chose to train for NHS professions during the pandemic – with fewer nurses and midwives quitting. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: "It is absurd that we are training thousands of nurses and midwives every year, only to leave them without a job before their career has started. "I am sending a clear message to every newly qualified nurse and midwife. We're here to support you from day one so you can provide the best care for patients and cut waiting lists."
The Royal College of Nursing general secretary Prof Nicola Ranger said she welcomed the news, noting it should "provide hope to students", but added a note of caution."When the health service urgently needs nursing staff, it was absurd to leave people in limbo," she said. "The test of this will be if students can find jobs, vacant posts are filled, and patients receive the care they deserve."Gill Walton, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, said: "We're pleased that the government has listened to the voices of student midwives who are desperate to start their career, only to find those opportunities blocked. "I know today's announcement will come as a relief to student midwife members."But it was not clear in the announcement what extra money there might be for employers already under pressure to cut costs. Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers which represents trusts, said it was good that staff concerns were being addressed - but added that there were questions over the finances.He said: "It's not clear how this will be fully funded, nor what it could mean for other staff groups facing similar challenges."Trust budgets are already under enormous pressure. There is no spare money."The health union Unison said ministers should also deal with a lack of opportunities for new graduates in occupational therapy as well as paramedics and other professions.The attempts to make it easier for newly qualified nurses and midwives to get jobs comes at a time of a growing row with the government over NHS pay in England.The Royal College of Nursing is calling for talks with ministers over pay issues after a consultative ballot of members showed a large majority opposing the 3.6% pay award. Future strike action has not been ruled out.Another health union, the GMB, has said there will be talks on Monday at the Department of Health after its members also came out against the wage award in a ballot.
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Scotsman
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Should Scotland's schools ban pupils from leaving school at lunchtime and buying junk food?
Brian Whittle has called for the Scottish Government to take action on children's fitness | PA Brian Whittle MSP has raised some innovative ideas for boosting pupil health in Scotland's schools Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Pupils should be banned from leaving school premises at break time in order to boost public health, a Scottish Conservative MSP has said. Dramatic interventions will have a 'significant' financial cost to the public purse but are vital in improving life chances for Scots, according to Brian Whittle. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A national audit of community sports facilities, mass volunteer programmes for retirees, and mandatory numbers of primary school PE teachers are also solutions proposed to deal with Scotland's poor health record. Mr Whittle, a former Olympic athlete, has produced a public policy paper with the think tank Enlighten, which aims to improve mental and physical health. 'It's easy to measure the cost of spending on prevention but it's often difficult to quantify how much isn't spent elsewhere as a consequence,' Mr Whittle said. He described the proposals as a 'first step' on a long road to changing Scotland's relationship with diet and physical activity. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Whittle added: 'The price of travel will be significant but those costs pale into insignificance when compared to the costs already being faced by our NHS, social security system and other public services, all of which bear the burden of our poor public health.' Rather than trying to endlessly increase the supply of NHS care, the solution must come from reducing the demand for the NHS.' In order to do this, the paper, A New Prescription: Putting prevention at the heart of public health maps out a series of proposals. Brian Whittle, Derek Redmond, Kriss Akabusi, Todd Bennett and Daley Thompson in 1999 | Getty Images He suggests the need for a national audit of community sports facilities and a new model for funding sport, saying the current government model is not 'credible or constructive'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Since 2011, the number of teachers whose principal subject is PE has fallen by 44 per cent, from 189 to 104. In schools, Mr Whittle says a mandatory minimum of specialist primary school PE teachers per head should be set. The public sector should be incentivised to procure locally sourced nutritious food and to then cook it on site, following a model used in Ayshire. He also advises that breakfast clubs are expanded for primary aged pupils, saying morning clubs present a 'major opportunity' to grow young people's horizons. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Whittle suggests making free breakfast available alongside activities such as sports, art, drama, or coding, 'giving pupils an outlet and encouraging them to be active and socialise'. 'This model has the additional benefit of removing any stigma around pupils accessing free meals as the breakfast club becomes about the activity first and the food second,' he said. 'A balanced breakfast has also been shown to improve focus and boost academic performance within the classroom. 'Additionally, there are wider physiological benefits through moderated metabolism and regulation of appetite for school-aged children, both of which impact mood and behaviour.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Whittle's intervention comes weeks after it was revealed that healthy life expectancy for people in Scotland has fallen to its lowest level in nearly a decade. Figures from the National Records of Scotland show women can expect 60 years of good health while men can expect just 59.6 years. Data published by the country's national archive said the drop in the average predicted years of good health may be driven by worsening health in younger people. Longevity has been falling in Scotland over the past decade and is now lower than in England by around 18 months. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Enlighten's Director Chris Deerin referred to Scotland's health record as 'notoriously poor, with data regularly placing us at or near the bottom of the charts across the west'. He added: 'For many years, politicians have talked about the need for a focus on prevention of ill-health, allowing people to live healthier lives for longer and reducing the strain on the NHS. 'Despite the talk, we haven't made anything like the progress required. 'The ideas contained in this paper suggest innovative ways in which Scotland's health record might be improved, with positive consequences for us all.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A Scottish Government spokeswoman said ensuring children and young people are physically active is a "key priority". She said: 'Active Schools delivery receives £13 million annual funding while all pupils receive around two hours of PE a week.'
BBC News
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Meghan Owen, Tarah Welsh & Naresh Puri BBC News Family pic One-year-old Exodus Eyob died when he fell from a seventh floor window in Leeds in 2022 Thirteen children have died in falls from windows in their rented or temporary accommodation in England since 2019, according to a study into fatalities of very young and primary-school age children. Such deaths are "entirely preventable", says the authors, the NHS-funded National Child Mortality Database (NCMD). Landlords must prioritise fixing faulty windows and ensure appropriate locks are in place, they say. The findings come as a second report, from England's housing watchdog, likens the scale of window safety defects in social housing to known issues with damp and mould. The BBC has visited families living in blocks of flats in Leeds and west London who say they are "terrified" of young children falling out of "unsafe" windows. A paediatric consultant in Manchester has also told us she has treated an "unusually high number" of children who have fallen from windows in recent months. Most attend with "significant injuries", she says, from broken bones - including to the skull and jaw - to internal damage to organs like the liver. The National Housing Federation, which represents England's housing associations, told us that social landlords have increased the number of checks they do to make sure buildings are "compliant with current regulations and safety requirements". Windows in the Leeds flat where Exodus Eyob lived were not defective, ruled an inquest The 13 children in the NCMD report were all aged under 11, and died between April 2019 and the end of May 2025. In some cases, families had reported broken windows, it says. In four cases there were no locks or restrictors (which limit how far a window can open), in four more cases a lock or restrictor was present but broken, and in another four they were not in use or had been disabled. One of the children who died was Exodus Eyob, who was a year old when he fell out of an open window from the seventh floor of a Leeds tower block in 2022. The restrictor on the window had been disengaged because it was a hot day. The lawyer who represented his family at his inquest, Gareth Naylor, tells the BBC that in a "split second" of an adult leaving the room, the toddler climbed on a bed and fell. Exodus's family had complained about how wide the windows could open, the inquest heard, but the coroner ruled the death had been "accidental" and the windows were not defective. The family lost their child in "terrible circumstances", says Mr Naylor. "What they ignored during [Exodus's] inquest is that these apartments are tiny, and the bed can only go under the window." If children are housed in towers, believes Mr Naylor, "a mesh or a guard" should be added for protection. Other fatalities include five-year-old Aalim Ahmed, who fell in May 2024 from the kitchen window of a social housing flat on the 15th storey of an east London tower block - and two deaths this year of two-year-olds, one in Gloucestershire and the other in south London. Tracey McGurk is worried about the safety of her windows when her grandchildren visit The number of deaths in the NCMD study is "very distressing" says the social housing watchdog, the Housing Ombudsman Service. Its own report highlights 34 cases of "severe maladministration", where complaints were dealt with badly. More than half involved children, where windows had not been repaired. The cases are not "one-offs" and landlords should urgently address safety concerns, says the report. It is "alarming" how some window complaints have been handled by landlords and how reports of children at risk of falls are being ignored, adds housing ombudsman, Richard Blakeway. One resident in Fulham uses duct tape to try to make their windows safer Examples from the watchdog's report include a mother unable to close some of her windows properly for four years, a window coming loose from its frame in a baby's room, and residents using duct tape to hold windows together. Duct tape is also how one council tenant in west London told us he had tried to make his windows safer, because he was so worried about his nine-year-old daughter. The tenant, who lives on the Lancaster Court Estate in Fulham, also says at one point, broken handles, which the council said were unfixable, meant a window was stuck open for a week during the winter. In total, we spoke to a dozen residents on the estate, which is owned by Hammersmith and Fulham Council, and saw that visibly broken windows without handles were a widespread problem, as well as mould around window frames. The windows are a "death trap" says Tracey McGurk, who has lived in her flat for five years and is worried for her grandchildren's safety. The day after we contacted the council, it sent a team to survey the windows and found six urgent repairs were required. "We're investing more than £1m every week to refurbish and repair our ageing housing stock," a spokesperson for Hammersmith and Fulham Council said, "part of a bold, three-year strategy that includes replacing every window that has reached the end of its life." The council is "not just meeting the housing ombudsman's window safety standards, we're exceeding them," they added. According to the ombudsman's report, some landlords are delaying temporary repairs for years because it is "most cost-effective" to wait for major works. "Replacing windows can be complex and costly," says Richard Blakeway, "but there can be no justification for the conditions some residents have endured." Rise in hospital admissions At Manchester Royal Infirmary, more than double the number of children attended with major trauma from a window fall between April and June this year, than in any similar period since 2020, the BBC has been told. There have been some 14 cases this spring, "almost one a week", says Dr Noellie Mottershead, a paediatric consultant at the children's emergency department. "It's the highest number we have seen, which is worrying us," she says, adding that the majority of patients were pre-school age. The doctor says she cannot explain the high number of incidents, but the UK recorded its warmest spring on record. A lot of the families said they knew the window was broken, or would not lock, and that no action had been taken despite reporting it to a landlord, says Dr Mottershead. Pre-school children are particularly susceptible to falls because of their lack of awareness of danger - and because their bodies are top heavy - says the Child Accident Prevention Trust says. Its advice to parents includes fitting window locks and ensuring furniture is away from windows. Buildings with "at risk" individuals like hospitals, schools and care homes are required to fit window restrictors, but such rules do not currently apply to rented accommodation. A government consultation on how to improve standards in both private and socially rented homes is currently taking place - and it is looking at how to ensure that all rented homes in England have child-resistant restrictors on any windows that present a fall risk. At the Leeds estate where Exodus died, and others, we saw windows wide open on flats The current proposals would make it possible for adults to override the restrictors to ensure fire safety, but lawyer Gareth Naylor says that's not enough. He wants restrictors installed that cannot be opened. "If you fall out of one of those tower block windows you are going to die," he says. "It's as simple as that. Deaths will keep occurring as long as you have these window restrictors in place that can be deactivated, because it's just too easy." We went to the estate in Leeds where Exodus died, and to several others where there have been child deaths, and saw that many windows were wide open. One father told us he has them open because it gets "so hot" living in a tower. Another mother of two small children living on the top floor of one block said she has to be "constantly" careful on hot days. The National Housing Federation told us it welcomed the review into requiring window restrictors on upper floors of blocks of flats. "Housing associations are dedicated to making sure all residents are safe in their homes," said its director of policy and research, Alistair Smyth, and they "recognise the crucial importance of secure windows in ensuring children's safety in particular". The government also plans to change current UK social housing regulations so a window has to be replaced if it has fallen into disrepair, irrespective of its age. Under current rules, windows in flats only have to be replaced, rather than repaired, if they have fallen into a state of disrepair and are over 30 years old. Councils need adequate and sustained funding to deliver the quality of housing that tenants rightly expect and deserve - according to the Local Government Association, which speaks for local councils. Any new requirements must be fully funded by government, a spokesperson added. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in England told us that "no child's life should be at risk because of poor quality housing, and we are determined to prevent future tragedies".
BBC News
a few seconds ago
- BBC News
'Exceptionally kind' Worcester hospice rated outstanding
A Worcester hospice has been given the top rating of outstanding by a care regulator for the first time in its Care Quality Commission (CQC) said care and support given to patients at St Richard's Hospice was "exceptionally compassionate and kind".The rating follows an unannounced inspection in March and follows a year in which the service cut its workforce in response to a £1m shortfall in its executive Mike Wilkerson said the rating marked a "significant milestone" and that he was "hugely proud" of his team. "[I] feel truly humble to work alongside such amazing people who make a real difference to our patients and loved ones each day," he added the support from the wider community, which provided about 80% of the charity's income, made the achievement possible."We thank all of you for playing your part to enable outstanding hospice care for people in Worcestershire."The CQC's deputy director of operations in Worcester, Craig Howarth, said inspectors found the service was "committed to providing the highest level of care possible during the most challenging times of people's lives"."It was also heartening to see the way staff went above and beyond to help people feel comfortable and have fun," he added."The whole team at St Richard's Hospice should be delighted with the findings of our report, which reflects their dedication to providing excellent care." Financial pressures In the report, comments included that staff demonstrated "genuine empathy" for patients, and cared for them and each other in a way that "exceeded expectation".The report added that the hospice's vision and strategy "reflected the needs of patients" and wider year hospice bosses said the independent charity was looking at axing up to 10 full-time jobs. It has also restructured clinical services and due to financial pressures caused by rising costs and growing hospice has since introduced new ways of working to maintain the number of patient beds available and care provision, it said, to ensure its "long-term future".Jenny Cowpe, chair of trustees, described the outstanding rating as a huge accomplishment and "testament to the difference each one of our team makes".The full report will be published in the coming days on the CQC website. Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
