Juniors doctors vote for strikes in England

Junior doctors in England have voted in favour of taking strike action in their fight to get a pay rise of 26%.

Members of the British Medical Association are now expected to take part in a 72-hour walkout, possibly as early as mid March.

The union said the rise being asked for was to make up for pay cuts since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.

But experts said if a different measure of inflation is used the fall in pay for junior doctor roles is lower.

The ballot by the BMA involved nearly 48,000 members working across hospitals and the community - more than two-thirds of the junior doctor workforce.

More than three-quarters of those balloted took part with 98% voting in favour of action.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chair Dr Robert Laurenson said the vote showed the strength of feeling about the issue.

“We are frustrated, in despair and angry and we have voted in our thousands to say, ‘in the name of our profession, our patients, and our NHS, doctors won’t take it anymore.’

“The government has only itself to blame, standing by in silent indifference as our members are forced to take this difficult decision.”

The results come as nurses and ambulance staff are warning they will escalate their industrial action in their dispute over pay.

Members of the Royal College of Nursing will walk out across half of frontline services in England next week for 48 hours.

Meanwhile, Unison, the biggest union in the ambulance service, is expected to announce more strike dates now that its mandate has increased from five of England’s 10 ambulance service to nine.

The last time junior doctors, which covers everyone who has just graduated from medical school through to those with many years’ experience on the front line, went on strike was in 2016 over a new contract that was introduced.

This year junior doctors saw pay increase by 2% as part of a four-year agreement that saw an overall rise of 8.2% between 2019-20 to 2022-23.

Currently, the basic starting salary for a junior doctor is £29,000, but once extra payments for things like unsociable hours is taken into account average earnings exceed £40,000.

By the end of their training, which can last 15 years for some, basic pay is more than £53,000.

These are doctors with huge responsibility, leading teams, carrying out surgery and making life-and-death decisions.

The Department of Health and Social Care said alongside an 8.2% pay rise over four years the current deal also introduced higher bands of pay for the most experienced staff and increased rates for night shifts.

A spokesman said the health secretary had met with the BMA to discuss pay and conditions. The pay award for the 2023-24 financial year is expected to be announced in the coming months.

“We hugely value the work of junior doctors and we have been clear that supporting and retaining the NHS workforce is one of our main priorities,” the spokesman added.

Sources at the BMA have said the 26% pay demand does not necessarily need to be paid in one go, but until the government agreed to restoring pay action would continue.

The BMA has yet to decide whether to strike elsewhere in the UK as it awaits more information from ministers about their pay plans in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Plymouth shooting: Families say warning signs were ignored

Breathtaking incompetence and failings by police allowed a gunman to kill five people during a mass shooting in Plymouth, victims’ families have said.

Jake Davison killed his mother and four other people, including a girl aged three, with a shotgun in August 2021.

Families of four of the victims said: “Warning signs were ignored and a licence to kill was granted.”

The inquest jury said there had been a “catastrophic failure” at Devon and Cornwall Police.

At the conclusion of a five-week inquest at Exeter Racecourse jurors said the deaths of the victims were “caused by the fact the perpetrator had a legally-held shotgun”.

All five of the victims were unlawfully killed, the jury concluded.

‘Pure evil’

Davison killed his mother Maxine, 51, Sophie Martyn, three, her father Lee, 43, Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66, in the Keyham area of Plymouth before turning the gun on himself.

In a joint statement read outside the hearing, the Martyn, Washington and Shepherd families said the shooting “was an act of pure evil”.

They added: “However, we now know that this evil act was facilitated and enabled by a series of failings and incompetence from the people and organisations that are supposed to keep us safe.”

Delivering a narrative conclusion on behalf of the jury, Ian Arrow, senior coroner for Plymouth, said: “There was a serious failure by Devon and Cornwall Police’s firearms and explosive licensing unit in granting and later failing to revoke the perpetrator’s shotgun licence.”

After hearing evidence from more than 50 witnesses the jury concluded there was “a lack of scrutiny and professional curiosity at all levels” and a “seriously unsafe culture of defaulting to granting licences and returning licences after review”.

The jury said there was a “catastrophic failure in the management of the Firearms Licensing Department at Devon and Cornwall Police”.

Davison applied to Devon and Cornwall

Police for a shotgun certificate in July 2017 aged 18, saying he wanted to go clay pigeon shooting with his uncle.

As part of the application process Davison had declared his autism and Asperger’s but when police sought relevant information from his GP, the doctor declined to provide any as it was not mandatory.

Nicola Bulley: Missing woman’s partner says family in ‘agony’ after body found

Nicola Bulley’s partner has spoken of his family’s pain after a body was found in the river near where she disappeared three weeks ago.

Paul Ansell wrote that he had “no words right now, just agony”, in a statement he shared with Sky News.

Ms Bulley disappeared while walking her dog in St Michael’s on Wyre in Lancashire, sparking a major search.

On Sunday, Lancashire Police said they “sadly recovered a body” from the water after being called to the River Wyre.

A statement said formal identification had not yet been carried out “so we are unable to say” if it was her at the time.

The death is currently being treated as “unexplained” and officers have begun the process of identifying the body.

But Lancashire Police also said Ms Bulley’s family “have been informed of developments and our thoughts are with them at this most difficult of times”.

In the statement to Sky, Mr Ansell added: “We’re all together, we have to be strong.”

Former Lancashire Police chief superintendent Bob Eastwood defended the force’s investigation amid “an absolute onslaught” of criticism.

Asked how it was possible a body could be found a mile from Ms Bulley’s last known location - despite an extensive river search - he told BBC Breakfast that the river is tidal and fast flowing.

“The way the tide comes and goes…it is possible that the body could have flowed in and flowed out and has eventually been given up by the water”, he said.

“To jump in…and automatically assume that the body was there the whole time is a step too far.”

He said detective superintendent Rebecca Smith, the senior investigating officer on the case, had been subjected to misogynistic abuse during a three-week search that has attracted national attention.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Eastwood also accused “so- called specialists” of imposing themselves on the investigation and Ms Bulley’s family.

He said they “fed into a lot of people’s obsessions”, adding: “I’m hoping their consciences are currently in overdrive.”

Ms Bulley, who worked as a mortgage adviser, was last seen walking her springer spaniel Willow after dropping off her two daughters, aged six and nine, at school on 27 January.

Her dog was found shortly after, along with her phone - still connected to a work conference call - on a bench by a steep riverbank.

Police previously said they believed the 45-year-old had gone into the river and that her disappearance was not suspicious.