Matt Hancock’s blueprint to reform the NHS, better integrate social care and “do away with irksome bureaucracy” will also hand greater power over the NHS to ministers. Conservatives have broadly welcomed Hancock’s shakeup to the health service, laid out today, while Labour has been questioning the health secretary’s priorities and timing given the UK is […]
Continue Reading
The government has been accused of “a betrayal of millions’” over their £3.5 billion fund to fix the cladding scandal that has left leaseholders in debt and limbo since the Grenfell fire, more than three and a half years ago. Politicians from all parties joined homeowners and campaigners to condemn the government’s £3.5 billion fund […]
Continue Reading
Travellers who arrive in the UK and fail to follow new rules to contain the coronavirus will face £10,000 fines and 10 years in prison, the health secretary has told the Commons. Matt Hancock said people arriving from 33 countries on the government’s “red list” will have to pay £1,750 to quarantine for 10 days […]
Continue Reading
The coronavirus rate of infection in the UK is back below 1, figures released today reveal, confirming the epidemic is finally shrinking, a month into England’s third lockdown. Boris Johnson is set to publish the government’s roadmap for lifting the lockdown restrictions in England on February 22, as data confirmed a decrease in positive coronavirus […]
Continue Reading
Matt Hancock has said the UK must “come down hard” on the South African coronavirus variant after community cases were found in eight areas across England. “Surge testing” will be carried out in the eight postcodes where a total of 105 cases of the SA variant – called 501Y.V2 – have been identified. Worryingly, 11 […]
Continue Reading
The EU’s decision to trigger a Brexit clause to block the export of Covid vaccines to Northern Ireland has been roundly condemned in Belfast, Dublin and London. The governments of the UK and Ireland have held “frantic talks” to try and “avert a full scale crisis” after the European commission triggered article 16 of the […]
Continue Reading
Boris Johnson has said he takes “full responsibility” for the government’s actions that have led to the UK passing the 100,000 mark for the number of people who have died with coronavirus. A sombre prime minister insisted his government “truly did everything we could” to fight the virus and limit deaths caused by Covid, yet […]
Continue Reading
Doubts are growing over the efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine with Germany’s leading business newspaper claiming the jab is only 8% effective for over 65s. AstraZeneca have rejected the “completely incorrect” claim with a spokesperson saying the jab has JCVI and MHRA authorisation, adding: “In November, we published data in The Lancet demonstrating that older […]
Continue Reading
A cabal of Conservative MPs are pressing the prime minister to set out an exit strategy from lockdown as the UK records it highest daily death toll from the virus to date. Another 1,610 people have died within 28 days of a positive test for Covid-19 – a new record high that takes the total […]
Continue Reading
The government has been warned by a member of its Sage panel of experts, that lifting lockdown next month would be a “disaster” that puts the “NHS under enormous pressure again.” Prof John Edmunds also said that the highly infectious Covid variant detected in Manaus, Brazil is probably already in the UK, although no cases […]
Continue Reading