February 24, 2010 9:27 pm
Times Online, “Stafford Hospital caused ‘unimaginable suffering’”
by David Rose
Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.
An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.
The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.
Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses “left a lot to be desired”.
Times Online article continues here.
February 16, 2010 11:22 pm
Mail Online, “Single mother-of-six finds £2m mansion on the net… and then gets YOU to pay £7,000 a month rent”
by Emily Andrews and Stephen Wright
A single mother-of-six is getting more than £80,000 a year from the taxpayer to live in a £2million mansion in an exclusive London suburb.
Essma Marjam, 34, is given almost £7,000 a month in housing benefits to pay the rent on the five-bedroom villa just yards from Sir Paul McCartney’s house and Lord’s cricket ground.
She also receives an estimated £15,000 a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14.
The four-storey house in Maida Vale has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room, large fitted kitchen-diner with French doors on to the landscaped garden and a state-of-the art buzzer entry system.
Mail Online article continues here.
January 25, 2010 10:09 pm
Mirror.co.uk, “Terror alert: Two men on ‘no-fly’ list stopped at Heathrow”
by Vincent Moss
Two men were stopped boarding US-bound planes at Heathrow days before Britain’s terror threat was raised to “severe”.
News of the incidents came hours after Home Secretary Alan Johnson lifted the threat level amid fears that al-Qaeda is planning an attack.
The new level, which means an attack is reckoned “highly likely”, is second only to “critical”.
Security sources say an Egyptian was stopped last Saturday as he tried to board an American Airlines flight to Miami. A man from Saudi Arabia was banned from boarding a United Airlines flight to Chicago the next day and sent back to Saudi.
The incidents and the raised threat level follow the failed Christmas Day bombing on a plane over Detroit.
Anti-terror officials said the past week had seen an “unusually high” number of people on their no-fly list trying to board US-bound planes.
Mirror.co.uk article continues here.
January 25, 2010 10:08 pm
The Guardian, “CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones”
by Paul Lewis
Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.
The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.
Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian article continues here.
