#health-secretary

#health-secretary

Former health secretary Matt Hancock feared being pushed down an escalator by an anti-vaccination protester who accused him of murdering people during the coronavirus pandemic, he told a court.Geza Tarjanyi, 62, of Leyland in Lancashire, who has denied causing harassment without violence, is accused of shoulder-barging the MP and shouting ridiculous conspiracy theories on two separate occasions on January 19 and 24.

Former health secretary Matt Hancock feared being pushed down an escalator by an anti-vaccination protester who accused him of murdering people during the coronavirus pandemic, he told a court.Geza Tarjanyi, 62, of Leyland in Lancashire, who has denied causing harassment without violence, is accused of shoulder-barging the MP and shouting ridiculous conspiracy theories on two separate occasions on January 19 and 24.

NHS trusts could face significant disruption during junior doctor strikes after hundreds of senior medics threatened not to provide cover for colleagues on picket lines.More than 800 hospital consultants in London have said they will not provide cover for striking junior doctors unless their employers agree to pay a higher overtime rate set by the British Medical Association (BMA).

The Chinese CCTV cameras which caught Matt Hancock's kiss with an aide will be banned from government buildings after Rishi Sunak's government made concessions to rebel Tory MPs.The government is changing its procurement bill so companies subject to China's National Security Law will be stopped from winning public contracts in the UK.

A new volunteer programme in the struggling social care sector is a drop in the ocean, according to a care leader who has called for much more help from the Government to address record vacancies.Volunteers would be an addition rather than a replacement for trained carers, the Health Secretary has said.

Former health secretary Matt Hancock has apologised for a rule breach after he lobbied the Commons' standards commissioner during an investigation into a Conservative MP.Mr Hancock committed the minor breach of the MPs' code of conduct by writing an unsolicited letter to Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg in defence of senior Tory Steve Brine, who was under investigation for allegedly breaking lobbying rules.

Matt Hancock has been told to apologise to Parliament after being found to have breached the MPs Code of Conduct.The former health secretary was found to have committed a minor breach of Commons rules by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.The Committee on Standards said Mr Hancock showed a lack of attention to the rules that was concerning for a former minister and MP of more than a decade.

Concerns about a delay have been raised after Health Secretary Steve Barclay refused to give a deadline for the release of the long-awaited NHS workforce plan.Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said on Monday that it did appear the plan had been delayed after the Health Secretary said that the plan would be published before the next election.

Steve Barclay has admitted some facilities included in the Government's commitment to provide 40 new hospitals by 2030 will not be built from scratch.The Health Secretary said the pledge would instead involve a range of things, including refurbishments and the development of new wings.The Government sparked confusion earlier this week when it repeated a 2019 manifesto pledge to build 40 new hospitals by the end of the decade, but acknowledged work may not be completed on up to eight of the original sites.

The health secretary has admitted the government is not building 40 new hospitals by 2030, as long promised, but said the projects involved a range of things including new wings and refurbishments.Steve Barclay, who nonetheless sought to insist that this did not break the Conservatives' manifesto promise for 40 new hospitals, also argued that the public were not concerned about the distinction as long as the facilities they used were new.

Hospital doctors in Scotland have been offered a cumulative 14.5% pay rise in a fresh attempt by Scottish ministers to avert highly disruptive strikes.Junior doctors had voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in Scotland for the first time after rejecting the original Scottish government offer, in a dispute closely mirroring the industrial action by doctors in English hospitals.

A leading health union has accepted the government's improved pay offer for NHS staff, in a move that could split unions over whether to keep on striking for more money.GMB members working in the NHS in England have voted by 56% to 44% to accept the deal that all 12 health unions hammered out last month with the health secretary, Steve Barclay.

Kate Forbes wanted time out of the spotlight to spend time with her family, according to Humza Yousaf's newly appointed deputy, Shona Robison, after his Scottish National party leadership rival announced she would be leaving the Scottish government rather than accept the rural affairs demotion he offered her. Allies of Forbes described the offer a significant step down from her previous position as finance secretary as an insult after Yousaf offered her a role in his new cabinet as cabinet secretary for rural affairs and islands.

Health secretary Steve Barclay has been urged to come clean and admit the Tory promise to build 40 new hospitals in England by 2030 can no longer be met.Mr Barclay has insisted Rishi Sunak's government remains committed to Boris Johnson's 2019 manifesto pledge but revealed that there has been a change to which hospitals are included in the programme.

The official public inquiry into the government's handling of Covid threatened the Cabinet Office with legal action over its refusal to share Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages and diaries from during the pandemic without heavy redactions.The inquiry issued a legal notice on 28 April 2023 requesting unredacted WhatsApp communications on devices owned or used by Johnson and his former senior adviser Henry Cook, a close friend of Carrie Johnson's who has now left government.

The head of the Royal College of Nursing union has called for a double-digit pay rise for nurses in England, raising the stakes in the long-running dispute with the government.Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN, had previously told members to accept the government's offer of 5% in March but it was rejected in a vote by 54% to 46%.

The NHS waiting list in England for hospital treatment has just broken its own record, rising to 7.3 million.Just before the data dropped, the Tories issued yet another murmured apology for missing an NHS waiting time target.A promise to treat all those who had been waiting 18 months for an operation by April had not been met with about 10,000 in that category still in line, the health secretary, Steve Barclay, admitted.

The MP Andrew Bridgen has announced he is joining Laurence Fox's Reclaim party after being kicked out of the Conservative party for comparing Covid vaccines to the Holocaust.The member for North West Leicestershire announced the move, which makes him Reclaim's first MP, at an event on Wednesday morning where he said he had felt like a prisoner while following the Tory whip.

Andrew Bridgen has formally begun a libel action against Matt Hancock following a row over a tweet.After Mr Bridgen tweeted that the Covid-19 vaccination programme was the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust, the former health secretary described his comments as disgusting and dangerous antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories.

A leading Conservative MP and former health minister did not properly declare his second job for a health recruitment firm when lobbying Matt Hancock and Michael Gove during the pandemic, the standards watchdog has found.Steve Brine, the chair of the Commons health committee, was found to have breached the rules twice by failing to declare in his approaches to cabinet ministers in early 2021 that he was a paid strategic adviser to Remedium Partners, a recruitment firm offering doctors for free to the NHS.

The Prime Minister has insisted that not everyone needs to see a GP as he declined to repeat the Conservative target of 6,000 more GPs by 2024.Rishi Sunak, instead, highlighted the massive increase in the number of staff working in GP surgeries and announced that the Government intends to significantly expand the number of specialist GPs as part of the forthcoming NHS workforce plans.

Patients will be able to contact their GPs for an appointment more easily under Government proposals to improve access to primary care.The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said practices will be handed 240 million this year to introduce online booking tools and upgrade telephone systems, as ministers aim to end the 8am scramble of patients ringing surgeries for a slot.

Humza Yousaf, who has become the first minority ethnic leader of the Scottish government, has had the advantage and the curse of being seen as the continuity candidate and Nicola Sturgeon's unacknowledged favourite.Of all three candidates, Yousaf, 37, was the only enthusiast for Sturgeon's approach and earned by far the most endorsements from SNP parliamentarians and ministers, notably including Sturgeon's deputy and closest political friend, John Swinney, himself a former leader of the party.

Scottish health secretary Humza Yousaf will finally find out his fate in the SNP leadership contest today.Mr Yousaf has been standing in the tense five-week contest against Ash Regan and Kate Forbes after Nicola Sturgeon announced she would resign, and will find out if he wins at around 2pm on Monday.

Hopes are rising of a breakthrough in the junior doctors dispute after their leaders held several hours of talks with the health secretary, Steve Barclay.Sources said the two sides were making some progress in a renewed effort to try to settle a bitter row over pay that has led to junior doctors staging two very disruptive strikes.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay dismissed allegations about his conduct, insisting that he worked constructively with officials and had not received any complaints about his behaviour.The Health Secretary has become the latest member of the Prime Minister's Cabinet to face bullying allegations, with officials from his department reportedly having spoken privately of bad behaviour.

An NHS boss has spoken out about the quite extraordinary challenges the health service is currently facing telling MSPs that his health board technically cannot afford a tenth of the staff working for it.Jeff Ace, chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway, said the difficulties facing the NHS at the moment were not part of our usual times are difficult' financial pressures.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has said he is cautiously optimistic that unions will accept the current pay offer for nurses, despite increasingly heated rhetoric between negotiators.On Tuesday, unions in the NHS Staff Council will consider the offer of a 5% pay increase for 2023/24 along with a one-off payment worth between 1,655 and 3,789 for the current financial year for nurses in England.

A four-day strike this week by junior doctors in England will pit angry medics keen to secure a 35% pay rise against government ministers who scorn their demands.The walkout from Tuesday morning to Saturday morning will be the most disruptive in the 75-year history of the NHS.But the action will also show how radicalised doctors have become due not just to cuts in pay but also to the Covid-19 pandemic, to poor conditions and to the frustrations of working in a health service that is slowly imploding.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has accused the First Minister of failing a family whose son has waited years for mental health treatment, asking how will First Minister Humza Yousaf be any different?At the newly-minted SNP leader's debut appearance at First Minister's Questions, Mr Sarwar raised his record while in charge of the NHS, claiming 11,000 children had waited longer than the 18-week target time between referral and access to mental health treatment and 14,000 had their referrals rejected during Mr Yousaf's tenure.

New First Minister Humza Yousaf vowed there could not be more unity in the SNP as he unveiled his first Cabinet which he said was the biggest reshuffle since 2007.Mr Yousaf said his new Cabinet, in which he gave top roles to his supporters, brings a mix of new faces and experience as junior ministers Jenny Gilruth, Neil Gray and Angela Constance have moved into Cabinet secretary positions and SNP stalwarts including Angus Robertson and Shirley-Anne Somerville remain.

For the first time in a rather long time, the mood within Scottish Labour is buoyant.Under Anas Sarwar's leadership, the party has gone from potential political extinction to consistently polling about 29%, which would result in around 15 seats in the general election up from the current total of one.

Jeremy Hunt has conceded the Treasury will have to find extra money to fund the pay offer to NHS staff, though the Department of Health and Social Care will also be forced to make savings.Health unions are now consulting their members on the offer, which includes a one-off bonus of up to 8.2% for this year and a pay rise of 5% from April, plus more for the lowest-paid.

The Scottish independence cause is dead after Humza Yousaf was elected as the new SNP leader, senior Labour and Tory figures have claimed.Mr Yousaf who will replace Nicola Sturgeon after narrowly defeating rival Kate Forbes said he would be asking the UK government straight away to grant the Scottish parliament the power to hold another independence referendum.

So, in an SNP leadership contest that became a pitting of competence against progressive values, progressive values won out.Humza Yousaf who has billed himself as the continuity candidate, the torchbearer for Nicola Sturgeon's liberal agenda came through in the end, although by a tighter margin than any new leader of a party would want.

Humza Yousaf has called on the party to unite behind him after he was elected as new leader of the SNP.Mr Yousaf said "We are no longer team Humza, or team Ash, or team Kate, we are one team."He said independence would be won "on the doorsteps" and pledged to kickstart a grassroots campaign.

Nicola Sturgeon has said her husband Peter Murrell was right to announce his immediate resignation as chief executive of the party she leads.Mr Murrell said on Saturday he was stepping down from his role with immediate effect, following suggestions the party's ruling National Executive Committee was considering a vote of no confidence in him.

Humza Yousaf has been announced as the new leader of the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon's successor.The former health secretary is set to become Scotland's youngest first minister.Finance Secretary Kate Forbes and former community safety minister Ash Regan were also in the running for the top job.Nicola Sturgeon announced in February that she would resign after more than eight years in the job, once her successor had been chosen.

Humza Yousaf has been elected the first minority ethnic leader of the Scottish National party after a tumultuous campaign that exposed deep divisions in the party that has dominated Scottish politics under his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon.He is almost certain to be confirmed as Scotland's next first minister in a nominal vote at Holyrood on Tuesday.

Matt Hancock is not worth 10,000 a day, according to a minister and Tory colleague of the former health secretary.Chris Philp, policing minister, said the sight of Mr Hancock and other senior Conservatives offering to advise a fake Korean company for enormous daily sums was pretty unedifying.He was speaking as new footage was released of Sir Graham Brady, chair of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, telling an activist posing as an employee of Hanseong Consulting that he would work for around 500 an hour.

There's a gap today that no locum filled, so I am carrying both bleeps and doing the work of two people.That recent tweet, by a children's doctor, is one of many examples posted on social media by medics illustrating how NHS staff shortages affect them, patients, the smooth running of important services and, sometimes, the safety of those who are receiving care.

The SNP is poised to reveal who will replace Nicola Sturgeon as party leader and Scotland's first minister as a chaotic and bitterly-fought six-week contest comes to an end.Frontrunners Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes, along with outsider Ash Regan, will find out shortly after the members' ballot closes at 12 noon on Monday who has the difficult job of replacing Ms Sturgeon in charge of the country.

The co-chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors committee has accused the Health Secretary of trying to pinch pennies after fresh strikes were announced in a row over pay.On Sunday, Dr Robert Laurenson apologised for the disruption further walkouts will cause but said he does not think they will put patients' lives at risk.

More than 170 former ministers and senior officials have taken private sector roles related to their old policy briefs in the past six years, research has found, with Sajid Javid, Robert Buckland and Gavin Williamson among the Tory MPs declaring lucrative second jobs in the last few weeks.A report from Transparency International found large numbers of ex- ministers and senior officials were going straight from their government jobs into private sector roles relevant to their former responsibilities, which it said raised serious questions over how potential conflicts of interest are managed in Westminster.

Junior doctors in England are to hold a new round of strikes after talks with the government failed to resolve a bitter row over pay.The British Medical Association (BMA) said a 96-hour stoppage would take place for shifts starting between 6.59am on Tuesday 11 April and 6.59am on Saturday 15 April.The BMA said the health secretary, Steve Barclay, had failed to make any credible offer, and it accused the government of not being serious about resolving the dispute.

SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf has pledged to give youngsters from deprived backgrounds free football club memberships if elected party leader and first minister.Speaking ahead of a visit to a football ground in Edinburgh, the Health Secretary said he would look to partner with football's ruling body in Scotland the SFA to deliver the initiative, which he claims would tackle obesity, improve community engagement and develop young talent.

Amending controversial gender reforms would be dancing to Westminster's tune, Humza Yousaf has said as he clashed with fellow SNP leadership candidates on the issue.The UK Government for the first time used Section 35 of the Scotland Act to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which was passed in December.

SNP leadership contender Humza Yousaf said his party should not restart the contest following criticism of its handling of a row over membership numbers.However, the Health Secretary conceded that the last 72 hours had been a difficult period for his party.It follows high-profile resignations of media chief Murray Foote and SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, who is First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's husband.

SNP leadership candidate Humza Yousaf has said the party's row over membership numbers is an own goal.Longstanding chief executive Peter Murrell, who is Nicola Sturgeon's husband, resigned on Saturday as he took responsibility for misleading figures being briefed to the press.The SNP's membership figures were revealed on Thursday after all three candidates vying to replace Nicola Sturgeon called for transparency around the exact number which had fallen by about 30,000 in just over a year.

Junior doctors could enter pay talks with the government imminently after ministers agreed a deal with other health unions.Vivek Trivedi, the co-chair of the British Medical Association's junior doctor committee, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday he was optimistic discussions would begin in the coming days following the agreement between the government and unions including Unison, the GMB and the Royal College of Nursing.

Close Unions suspend NHS strikes after pay negotiation breakthrough Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Unions have suspended further strike action in England after a new pay offer was reached with ministers.The offer backed by the Royal College of Nursing, the GMB and Unison includes a one-off lump sum for 2022-23 that rises in value up the NHS pay bands as well as a permanent 5 per cent rise on all pay points for 2023-24.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Health Secretary and would-be first minister Humza Yousaf has been branded incompetent by Labour leader Anas Sarwar, as he told MSPs no dentists are taking on new NHS patients in more than a quarter of health boards.

The health secretary, Steve Barclay, is expected to announce a formal pay offer to key unions involved in NHS strikes in England, including a one-off payment of up to 6% for this year, in an effort to end months of industrial action.Last-minute talks between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the unions were understood to be continuing on Thursday morning, but an offer was expected to be made public later in the day.

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email The Treasury is facing a backlash over a tweet about Jeremy Hunt's Budget which mocked Matt Hancock's leaked WhatsApp messages.The chancellor poked fun at the former Tory health secretary as he revealed the details of his budget in the Commons on Wednesday.

NHS staff have accused Steve Barclay of breaking a pledge to publish details of how many of them are abused and assaulted in the course of their work.In 2018, when Barclay was a junior minister in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), he promised he would resume publication of those statistics in the following year.

Ministers and health unions are on the verge of a breakthrough in talks to resolve their long-running pay dispute that has triggered a series of NHS strikes in England, with an announcement expected as soon as Thursday, the Guardian has been told.Sources said positive progress had been made on discussions about the awards for ambulance workers and nurses for both 2022-23 and 2023-24, although uncertainty remained about whether union members would accept the terms when they are balloted.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails The Government has promised a cash boost for suicide prevention work as the Chancellor gave a nod to his predecessor, whose brother took his own life in 2018.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Funding for carers to have respite breaks should be doubled, a coalition representing older people has urged Jeremy Hunt as they dubbed him the Health and Care Chancellor.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails The NHS can't go on like this, a senior health chief has warned as he urged the Government to come to an agreement with striking unions over pay.Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive at NHS Providers, said the NHS was not seeing business as usual on Tuesday as it endured the second day of a 72-hour walkout by junior doctors.

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Thousands of junior doctors have entered a second day of walkouts as health leaders warned that the NHS is facing high pressure as a result of the strikes.