NHS delays, strikes and sewage – also in the news on August 24
‘Your call is in a queue…’: is this guy waiting for the NHS to answer him, now he’s on his way out of his big job?
Politics doesn’t seem to be taking a summer holiday this year, so This Site is falling behind what’s happening – and that would never do!
So here’s a quick round-up of some of the stuff that has also been happening while Vox Political has been concentrating on other things:
NHS 111 delays force patients to wait 20 times longer than promised
Patients calling NHS 111 are being left on hold for 20 times longer than the expected time, data show, as the public is urged to use the service instead of going to accident and emergency.
The helpline for medical advice aims to answer calls in 20 seconds or less on average, according to an NHS benchmark. However, the latest official figures show the average time to answer a call was 395 seconds – six and a half minutes.
It seems the Tories have finally put the NHS on its last legs. If you do get through, but you have a serious problem, what are the chances of being treated when fundholding GPs are incentivised to work on the cheapest and easiest problems first, leaving people with more difficult ailments to wait – or go private and have to deal with doctors who don’t have a clue?
Union admits supply chain will be ‘severely disrupted’ as port workers go on strike
Almost 2,000 workers have walked out of their jobs on an eight-day workers’ strike – the latest in a summer of industrial action.
About 1,900 members of Unite, including crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores, are taking part in the first strike to disrupt the port in 31 years, following a more than nine-one vote in favour.
The union is asking for a pay rise in line with inflation – which currently stands at 12.3 per cent. Workers had previously been offered a 7% increase, as well as a £500 lump sum payment.
Strikers have accepted that their action will severely disrupt the supply chain – which has already suffered deep harm because of the Tory Brexit. It seems Conservative government policy is to inflict shortage after shortage upon the people – in the hope that many of us won’t survive it?
‘Nobody is helping’: Barristers vote for ‘indefinite’ strike starting next month
Criminal barristers in England and Wales have voted in favour of an escalation of strike action.
The Criminal Bar Association (CBA), which represents lawyers prosecuting and defending those accused of crimes in England and Wales, said its members had backed a plan to go on strike “on an indefinite basis” from Monday 5 September.
They join rail staff, teachers and civil servants in backing or considering industrial action over the coming months at a time when pay awards are lagging behind the four-decade high rate of inflation.
The CBA has said its members have suffered an average decrease in earnings of 28% since 2006 – when taking inflation into account – and has accused the government of refusing to engage in negotiations “aimed at finding a fair settlement”.
There is a backlog of more than 60,000 cases, with 6,000 having suffered disruption due to this strike action. The victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Vera Baird QC, said the action was “the latest symptom of a criminal justice system that is severely and recklessly underfunded” and warned that victims of crime will pay the price and continue to suffer while the government allows criminals to go unpunished.
Sharkey says Government to blame for ‘sorry mess’ of sewage on our beaches
The Government’s failure to control the water industry is to blame for the “sorry mess” of sewage pumped into Britain’s beaches, an environmental campaigner has said.
Feargal Sharkey said three decades of poorly regulated profiteering among water companies and a “vacuum of political oversight” had resulted in a state of “extraordinary chaos”.
Reacting to reports that monitors being used for measuring the levels of sewage in the sea are faulty, he warned that beach-goers have no clear picture of the amount of waste in the water they swim in.
Event Duration Monitors (EDMs) used by firms across the UK either did not work for at least 90% of the time or had not been installed at all, the Liberal Democrats have found.
One has to admire Feargal Sharkey, the former pop singer turned environmental campaigner. His is the voice to trust on the ongoing pollution of our waterways that was precipitated by the imbecilic sale of the UK’s water and sewage systems to private owners by Margaret Thatcher in 1989. Sadly there is no political will to bring this nightmare back under control.
Britons are facing the prospect of higher food prices after a US firm rejected an offer to save a crucial manufacturing plant, an MP has warned.
The shutdown of CF Industries’ fertiliser factory in Ince, Cheshire, is all but complete after a UK-based group of investors failed in a rescue bid. Hundreds of jobs have been lost at the facility.
CF produces 60 per cent of Britain’s CO2 supplies as a by-product of agricultural fertiliser. The gas is crucial in packing and preserving fresh food and salads.
Labour MP Justin Madders, whose constituency includes Ince, said the factory closure means CF has a ‘stranglehold over fertiliser prices in the UK’.
There’s an opportunity here for someone. It seems former Army chief Lord Dannatt wanted to buy the plant but CF didn’t want to sell, which indicates that it wanted to push up CO2 prices – understandable, considering it had a government bailout in 2021 so its finances can’t be particularly good. One wonders how much its bosses and shareholders take home in pay and dividends, though.
And if one fertiliser factory can offer CO2 as a by-product, can’t others do the same? There must be a business model that will work.
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