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NHS 'Turf War' Led To Baby And Mum Deaths

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 03 Maret 2015 | 14.59

By Nick Martin, Sky News Correspondent

A report into the deaths of as many as 30 mothers and babies from lack of care at a Morecambe Bay trust hospital is expected to be highly critical of NHS managers and health watchdogs.

The investigation, ordered by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, has looked into the circumstances surrounding the deaths at Furness General Hospital between 2004 and 2013.

Families of those who have lost loved ones say they have been forced to wait too long for answers. Many are now suing the Trust for negligence. 

Carl Hendrickson, whose wife Nittaya and son Chester both died, claims health records showing her heart rate during the birth have gone missing.

He said: "It was terrible. My wife actually died in my arms. I felt her heart stop. I was holding her. So they did an emergency section whilst I was there.

"I knew my wife was going to die once they did that. Chester died shortly afterwards. We have been forced to wait too long for a full explanation."

Six midwives face disciplinary hearings in front of the Nursing and Midwifery Council later this year. But to date no nurses, midwives or doctors have been permanently struck off.

The investigation has heard how midwives failed to alert doctors about patient complications in time because of a 'turf war' between the two professions.

Midwives appeared not to have been on speaking terms with doctors and claimed they were made to feel irrelevant when doctors were called in to help with difficult cases.

The report looked at more than 50 cases where there was serious cause for concern about the treatment given to mothers and babies.

In 2014, a separate investigation accused senior officials at the NHS watchdog the Care Quality Commission of colluding to attempt to delete a report which exposed failures to act on concerns.

The report is expected to lead to demands for reform of the way medical staff are held to account.

It is due to be released to the public at midday on Tuesday.

It follows the public inquiry into the scandal at Stafford hospital where hundreds of patients suffered poor care and neglect between 2005 and 2009.

The King's Fund, an independent health charity, has called for the "archaic" system of midwives investigating complaints made against colleagues to be axed.

Peter Walsh, of Action Against Medical Accidents, told Sky News: "The failures of the regulators of all shapes and sizes singularly and collectively is one of the most disturbing features of this episode and we hope that this report really is able to establish who is responsible for these failings."


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Jail Threat For Child Abuse Case Neglect

By Tom Parmenter, News Correspondent

Sexual abuse of children will be reclassified as a "national threat", with jail sentences for public sector workers who fail to protect youngsters, under Government plans.

It is among a series of proposals unveiled by the Prime Minister in response to abuse scandals in towns and cities where children have been consistently let down.

The crime of "wilful neglect" would be extended to cover children's social care and education, with unlimited fines for individuals and organisations shown to have failed in their duties.

At a Downing Street summit later David Cameron will say: "Children were ignored, sometimes even blamed, and issues were swept under the carpet - often because of a warped and misguided sense of political correctness.

"That culture of denial which let them down so badly must be eradicated.

"Today, I am sending an unequivocal message that professionals who fail to protect children will be held properly accountable and council bosses who preside over such catastrophic failure will not see rewards for that failure."

It comes as a damning report into the sexual torture of girls in Oxford is about to be published.

Like previous reviews in Rotherham and Rochdale, it will confirm missed opportunities to end the suffering and that youngsters were cast adrift by an inept social care system.

Seven men were jailed for a total of 95 years in May 2013 for grooming, trafficking and systematic sexual abuse of young girls in Oxford.

Since the gang members were arrested, social care has been shaken up in Oxford and a unit known as "Kingfisher" established where social workers and police officers work side by side.

Detective Inspector Laura McInnes said: "Child sexual exploitation is everywhere. When I first started on the team I wondered if we would find enough work and I have been overwhelmed by the amount of work that is coming in.

"I think for any area that perhaps feels that they have not got a problem I would say you probably aren't looking hard enough for it."

Every police patrol is now focused on looking for the signs or behaviours that may mean young people are exposed to abuse.

Sue Evans, social care team manager, told Sky News: "In previous years we did not properly understand the grooming process and the way it eroded the decision making capacity of a child.

"We do now understand that and we have responded in a way that gives all agencies the best chance of ending the hold abusers can gain over children."

More than 200 children deemed to be at risk of abuse in the Thames Valley have been referred to the Kingfisher team since it was created.

Founder of Enough Abuse UK, Marilyn Woods, told Sky News: "Anyone believing this crime can never happen again is naive, unrealistic, uninformed and wrong.

"Attempting to smooth over the here and now reality, misinforms the public and is ultimately damaging for all."

A new national helpline for whistleblowers will also be set up under the Prime Minister's proposals along with new funding for groups working with survivors.


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Ambulance Services Spent £5m On Private Crews

Written By Unknown on Senin, 02 Maret 2015 | 14.59

By Thomas Moore, Health Correspondent

Ambulance services were forced to spend more than £5m hiring private crews and charities to cope with the winter A&E crisis as tens of thousands of hours were wasted queuing outside hospitals, a Sky News investigation has found.

Over the four weeks covering the last two weeks of December and first two weeks of January, some 1,780 days of operational time was lost because hospitals were too full to admit patients.

The 42,726 hours of delays are equivalent to taking 64 ambulances out of service at the same time.

On 11,203 occasions over that period crews waited more than an hour to hand over emergency patients, the figures show.

Patients experienced handover delays of more than half an hour 39,523 times.

One service said the delays its crews experienced were twice those of the previous winter.

As a result of the delays and the unprecedented pressure, services had to pay for private ambulances to respond to calls instead landing them with a bill of £3.79m.

They also spent £1.23m on charity-run ambulances such as Red Cross to help ease the crisis.

The figures were obtained by Sky News under Freedom of Information requests made to the 10 regional ambulance services in England.

When ambulances take patients to hospital, crews are supposed to be able to hand them over to staff in 15 minutes or less.

But delays take place when the hospitals are too busy or over-crowded to admit them.

Over the four-week period covered by the figures (from 15 December to 11 January), the West Midlands service recorded 9,874 hours of working time were lost due to delays in excess of a quarter of an hour.

In London, 6,833 hours were lost and in the East Midlands crews recorded 6,761 hours of delays.

In the Eastern region, patients were forced to wait in ambulances for more than an hour on 2,049 occasions, in the East Midlands 2,043 and in the North West 1,854 times.

During the period the South East Coast service spent £919,000 on paying for private ambulances and a further £74,000 to charities.

The London service spent £610,233 on private services and £109,118 on voluntary ones. In Yorkshire, £439,868 was spent on ambulances supplied by charities.

The apparently high use of private agency ambulance staff has raised concerns due to the cost and potential lack of experience among crews.

Christina McAnea, head of health at Unison, said: "Members sometimes tweet us photos of queues of ambulances outside A&E departments.

"That is such a waste of time and resources for very experienced, qualified staff who could be out there helping patients if the rest of the system was running smoothly."

Neil le Chevalier, director of operations, South Western Ambulance Trust, said: "We are very much the sponge of the NHS.

"We absorbed a lot of the pressure. Compared to 2013 we saw double the amount of delays.

"If an ambulance is queuing in a hospital it can't be responding to emergency calls, so it is a very critical situation for us that we have to work through."

A spokesman for NHS England said: "There has been an unprecedented level of demand for all frontline services this winter, which has put every part of the NHS under pressure.

"We have invested over £48m to give ambulance trusts extra capacity this winter to respond to this pressure."


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Search For Missing Becky Watts Intensifies

Search For Missing Becky Watts Intensifies

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Police are intensifying their search for missing 16-year-old Becky Watts as a laptop found in woods was revealed not to be hers.

Six specialist teams with officers from four counties are now searching locations within a 1.6-mile radius of her Bristol home - as well as sites surrounding the city.

Forensic teams are searching three houses - in the Southmead and Barton Hill areas and the family home in St George - while a dog unit and a police helicopter are due to be used on Monday.

Becky had her laptop, her phone and her tablet computer with her when she left her house in the St George area on 19 February.

She is said to have left without telling friends or family and did not take any spare clothes.

It had been hoped that the discovery of the laptop in woodland, not far from her home, could be a breakthrough in the case - but it has now been discounted.

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  1. Gallery: Three Locations Are 'Lines Of Inquiry', Police Say

    Police are now searching three houses in Bristol as they try to find missing 16-year-old Becky Watts

One of the homes being searched is in Southmead

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More than 100 people, including friends and family, have been taking part in a search for Rebecca.

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The 16-year-old was last seen at her house in Bristol on 19 February

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Members of the public found a discarded laptop during the search

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Search For Missing Becky Watts Intensifies

We use cookies to give you the best experience. If you do nothing we'll assume that it's ok.

Police are intensifying their search for missing 16-year-old Becky Watts as a laptop found in woods was revealed not to be hers.

Six specialist teams with officers from four counties are now searching locations within a 1.6-mile radius of her Bristol home - as well as sites surrounding the city.

Forensic teams are searching three houses - in the Southmead and Barton Hill areas and the family home in St George - while a dog unit and a police helicopter are due to be used on Monday.

Becky had her laptop, her phone and her tablet computer with her when she left her house in the St George area on 19 February.

She is said to have left without telling friends or family and did not take any spare clothes.

It had been hoped that the discovery of the laptop in woodland, not far from her home, could be a breakthrough in the case - but it has now been discounted.

1/14

  1. Gallery: Three Locations Are 'Lines Of Inquiry', Police Say

    Police are now searching three houses in Bristol as they try to find missing 16-year-old Becky Watts

One of the homes being searched is in Southmead

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More than 100 people, including friends and family, have been taking part in a search for Rebecca.

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The 16-year-old was last seen at her house in Bristol on 19 February

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Members of the public found a discarded laptop during the search

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MI5 Made Emwazi Feel Like 'A Dead Man Walking'

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 01 Maret 2015 | 14.59

The Londoner identified as "Jihadi John" told a journalist in 2010 that harassment by British security services had made him fear he was a "dead man walking", it has been revealed.

Years before his reign of terror in Islamic State videos began, Mohammed Emwazi emailed a reporter to claim that several run-ins with intelligence officials had left him contemplating suicide.

The 26-year-old described coming face-to-face with someone who he suspected was a British spy - months after he graduated from the University of Westminster.

Emwazi was attempting to sell a laptop when he became suspicious of the mystery buyer, according to messages he sent to a Mail on Sunday reporter.

He wrote: "Sometimes I feel like a dead man walking, not fearing they (MI5) may kill me.

"Rather, fearing that one day, I'll take as many pills as I can so that I will sleep for ever! I just want to get away from these people!"

The correspondence was released on Sunday night - hours after a tranche of messages between Emwazi and a campaign group emerged.

He began emailing the CAGE organisation after he was questioned by counter-terrorism officers while attempting to fly from Heathrow to his native Kuwait in 2010 - and claimed the security services were "stopping him from living his new life" abroad, where he had secured a job and was getting married.

In one message, the graduate wrote: "I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, (but) in London. A person imprisoned and controlled by security service men."

Emwazi appears vulnerable in several of his emails, and asks for advice in complaining to his MP and the Independent Police Complaints Commission about the treatment he had received.

After being told by British officials that he would not be allowed to move to Kuwait, he told CAGE: "I'm not going to give up!! I'm going to wait for my Dad to come back so that we can visit the Kuwaiti embassy in London… going to the embassy myself won't be successful."

The last email that Emwazi sent to CAGE in January 2012 showed no indication of the violent acts of terror he would soon be involved in - and had the subject title: "Smile, it's me again?! Sorry for the headaches I cause…"

When Emwazi was first unmasked as "Jihadi John" earlier this week, representatives from CAGE described him as "extremely kind and gentle" and "the most humble young person we ever knew".

He is believed to be involved in the cold-blooded murders of at least five Western aid workers and journalists who were taken hostage by Islamic State in Syria. They include two Britons: Alan Henning and David Haines.

The University of Westminster has been accused of allowing a toxic environment of radical Islam within the institution, a charge it vehemently denies. Emwazi earned a computer programming degree at one of its campuses.

Meanwhile, the high school where the militant studied, Quintin Kynaston Academy, is being investigated by the Department for Education - after a Sunday Telegraph report claimed that two other pupils from the north London school had been killed fighting for al Qaeda and al Shabaab.

A Government spokeswoman added: "The allegations about Quintin Kynaston may be historic - and it is clearly a completely different school today - but I'm sure we will look back at evidence from the time as part of this review to see if there are any lessons we can learn for the future."


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'Toxic Environment' At Emwazi's University

A former student at Mohammed Emwazi's London university has told Sky News it allowed a toxic environment of radical Islam, where holy war was glorified behind closed doors.

The University of Westminster has insisted it condemns the promotion of radicalisation and is trying to stop it, after Emwazi was unmasked as the Islamic State militant "Jihadi John".

The unnamed ex-student said groups active at the university "created a hostile environment towards non-Muslims, were anti-Israeli and homophobic remarks were rampant at the campus".

He added: "If this toxic environment endured after I left I am not surprised a 'normal' young Muslim struggling to find identity became radicalised."

The former student added the university was "excellent" but "their tolerance was abused by people who played a double game".

The University said in a statement: "We condemn the promotion of radicalisation, terrorism and violence or threats against any member of our community.

"We have strict policies to promote tolerance among our 20,000 student community, who come to study from over 150 nations.

"Any student found to be engaging in radicalised activity or intimidating others would be subject to disciplinary procedures."

Emwazi, 26, studied at the university between 2006 and 2009, earning a computer programming degree.

Earlier, an ex-school pupil of Emwazi said he seemed peculiar and violent as a youngster.

The man, who does not want to be named, also told Sky News that Emwazi "got into some fights" and smoked, but there was nothing in his secondary school that could have left him radicalised.

However, he said there was potential for him to be groomed because he kept himself to himself and did not make eye contact.

There has been widespread shock at Quintin Kynaston Academy following Emwazi's apparent involvement in a series of IS videos which show the gruesome beheadings of Western hostages.

The school said in a statement it was "shocked and sickened" that one of their alumni had become involved in terrorism.

MI5 has reportedly questioned Emwazi's former teachers following on from his identification.

The former pupil said there was nothing to suggest Emwazi was religious during his teenage years.

"There was something peculiar about him in that he was violent but he wasn't someone who was loud, who talked in a provocative way," the ex-schoolmate said.

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  1. Gallery: Jihadi John's University Academic Record

    Mohammed Emwazi, aka Jihadi John, studied a computing course at university. Sky News has exclusively obtained his student record

His file shows mostly middling academic grades for his course modules. He graduated with a lower second (2.2) degree

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PM Defends MI5 After 'Jihadi John' Named

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 28 Februari 2015 | 14.59

David Cameron says Britain will do "everything we can" to bring terrorists to justice after Londoner Mohammed Emwazi was identified as the Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John".

The Prime Minister also expressed his support for Britain's security services as questions were raised about whether appropriate actions were taken to stop Emwazi from travelling to Syria.

Speaking at an event in Cardiff, Mr Cameron defended MI5 and praised the service for its "dedicated and courageous" work protecting Britain.

"They are having to make incredibly difficult judgements, and I think basically they make very good judgements on our behalf," he said.

"I think while we are in the middle of this vast effort to make sure British citizens are safe, the most important thing is to get behind them."

The security agency has been criticised for its handling of Emwazi's case. The 27-year-old travelled to Syria in 2013, several years after MI5's first contact with the militant. 

In 2009 he was reportedly questioned by an MI5 officer in Amsterdam who accused him of attempting to travel to Somalia to join a terror group.

Asim Qureshi, a director of the CAGE campaign group, has claimed Emwazi was harassed by the security agency over the following years as agents tried to recruit him as an informant.

Sir Menzies Campbell, a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, has indicated that the parliamentary committee is likely to seek answers from MI5 over what information they held on "Jihadi John".

The families of Western hostages killed by Islamic State have expressed mixed reactions to the identification of Emwazi

A spokesman for relatives of Steven Sotloff, the US journalist beheaded in an Islamic State video, says they have "full faith" that Emwazi will eventually face justice. 

While refusing to address specific cases, Mr Cameron said the security services and the police would do "everything" to bring those who commit "appalling and heinous crimes" to justice.

He described Britain's security services as "incredibly impressive, hard-working and dedicated".

"I'm satisfied we have in place the right ways of scrutinising the work that these extraordinary men and women do on our behalf," Mr Cameron said.

"Even in the last few months their dedication and work has saved us from plots on the streets of the United Kingdom that could have done immense damage.

"So I think it is a moment to stand up and thank them for the work they do on our behalf."

Speaking to Sky News, the executive director of the Human Security Centre, an independent foreign policy think tank, criticised CAGE for suggesting that Emwazi was radicalised as a consequence of his contact with MI5.

"This narrative was put forward by CAGE, which is often described as a human rights organisation, or a civil liberty organisation, but which is actually a pro-Islamist organisation," she said.

"They have a long record of supporting terrorists and of apologising for their actions."

Meanwhile Boris Johnson has told Sky News of his concern about youth being "sucked into" Islamist ideologies in London and across the country.

Mr Johnson was speaking to First News readers and contributors from Sky News' Stand Up Be Counted campaign.

Asked whether people should feel safe in Britain, Mr Johnson said: "We should feel safe in this country. (The) police are doing a great job... and we're a safe society.

"But... we do have a problem with terrorism, with young people who are just being driven into an ideology that in my view is leading them into dangerous and criminal, catastrophic behaviour."


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