United Kingdom

    The NHS has spent at least £7m adapting or replacing equipment to fit obese patients The NHS has spent at least £7 million on adapting services and equipment to treat obese patients over the last five years, according to new figures. The data, obtained by Sky News through Freedom of Information requests, revealed many NHS foundation trusts increased spending on bariatric provisions in the last two years. Money was spent on items including bigger beds, wheelchairs and mortuary slabs, the broadcaster said. The new figures come amid a row between health campaigners and the Government over the introduction of a sugar tax to help curb obesity. Of 100 foundation trusts asked for information, around half responded suggesting the overall amount of money spent could be higher. Acco...

    Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is to accuse Britain's top police officer of making untrue claims over the causes of rising knife crime. In a hard-hitting speech to a policing conference, Mrs May will insist it is "simply not true" that incidents involving knives have increased due to Home Office-led changes to stop and search powers. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, announced in June that he was sanctioning renewed use of the controversial powers as he explicitly linked their rationing with a 25 per cent jump in knife crime in the capital. In a rebuke which signals ever-worsening relations between the Home Secretary, Sir Bernard and other senior officers, Mrs May will accuse them of "a knee-jerk reaction on the back of a false link". The Home...

    Three overloaded boats carrying 140 refugees from Syria have washed up at Britain’s military base in Cyprus, potentially opening up a new front line in the migration crisis. The refugees, believed to include women and children, have been transferred to a temporary reception area at the sovereign base at Akrotiri on southern coast of the Mediterranean island. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence confirmed that four boats had arrived at the base, which has been used to launch airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The MoD is still gathering details about the incident, including the number of refugees involved. “I believe it is more than a hundred, but there is no confirmation of the exact number at the moment,” the spokesman said. He said it was unc...

  The IndependentLast winter was the deadliest that Scotland has experienced for 15 years, official statistics have revealed, leading to calls for ministers to take action against the “scourge” of homes which are cold or difficult to heat. More than 22,000 deaths were registered in Scotland between December and March, according to data published by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) on 20 October – the highest overall number since the winter of 1999. The spike follows a record low of 18,675 deaths in the winter of 2013/14. The Scottish Government said the rise in the death toll could reflect the growing number of elderly people living in Scotland with multiple health problems. Respiratory and circulatory diseases were responsible for many of the deaths. Last winter’s “seasonal i...

    A mother was reduced to tears as she confronted a Conservative minister on Question Time about her government's decision to press ahead with £4.5bn of tax credit cuts next April. Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change secretary, was left speechless as a woman in the audience told her exactly what the cuts would mean to her and her children. She explained how she had been left betrayed after voting for the Tories at the election only to be slapped in the face with cuts to working tax credits that are estimated to make three million families more than £1,300 a year worse off and made Ms Rudd look very uncomfortable as she finished off by shouting "shame on you". "I voted Conservative originally because I thought you were going to be the better chance for me and my childre...

    A fierce Arctic blast will sweep the UK bringing the first snowfall this autumn in just two weeks. Temperatures are set to take a nosedive after the weekend as a blanket of icy air sweeps in from the east. Some parts of the country will see thermometers sink below freezing with frost and bitter winds bringing the first taste of winter. The warning comes as Europe wraps up for an early whiteout with bitter easterly winds heading this way next week. Weather Network forecast for cool blast across the UK Parts of Scotland and very high ground further south could see the first flurry of snow arrive before the end of the month, forecasters say. Leon Brown, forecaster for The Weather Channel UK, said: "The main theme for next week is drier weather but also turning quite a bit col...

    The UK made a clandestine vote-trading deal with Saudi Arabia to enable both countries to secure a place in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), leaked Saudi diplomatic cables have revealed. The classified documents suggest David Cameron's government initiated backroom talks with Riyadh ahead of the November 2013 vote in New York to ask for support. Both countries were eventually elected to the UNHRC, which has 47 member states. A Foreign Office spokesman refused to confirm if the vote-trading deal had taken place, saying it was "standard practice" not to reveal voting records. Saudi Arabia has one of the worst human rights records in the world, and has executed more than 130 people this year. Its recent appointment to the chair of an influential five-member UNHRC panel dr...

    The Labour conference has formally committed itself to the renationalisation of the English rail network as it pledged to oppose another round of unneeded, unwanted and ill-thought-through privatisation. In a significant boost for the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has suffered a series of setbacks over the EU and Trident, Labour’s national executive committee agreed a statement that paves the way for the rolling renationalisation of the rail network. Conference opposes another round of unneeded, unwanted and ill-thought-through privatisation,” it said. “We believe there is a better way. Manuel Cortes, the general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), welcomed the move. Opening the debate on the NEC statement in a speech from the Labour conferen...

    Four British jihadis who have travelled to Syria to join Islamic State have been hit with UN sanctions. They are: Omar Hussain from High Wycombe, Nasser Muthana from Cardiff, Aqsa Mahmood from Glasgow and Sally Jones from Chatham, in Kent. Under the UN's al Qaeda sanctions regime, the jihadists will face a global asset freeze and travel ban. It means if they try to cross into another country they are likely to be arrested on the spot. Jones went to Syria in 2013 with husband Junaid Hussain, who was killed in a US airstrike in August. She uses social media as a recruitment tool to get women to join IS. Mahmood also went to Syria two years ago, and is believed to be a key figure in the al Khanssaa brigade, a female brigade in Raqqa which was established by the militants to e...

    Each year about 240,000 British businesses collapse. To survive beyond the first couple of years is an achievement; to celebrate 50 years trading is remarkable. But for a shopkeeper to be able to mark a 500th anniversary is worthy of great celebration which is precisely what Richard Balson did last weekend. RJ Balson & Sons, the butcher’s shop he owns in the pretty market town of Bridport, Dorset, has survived the Reformation, the English Civil War, the start of the Industrial Revolution, the end of horsepower, the rise of the internet and more recessions than you can shake a black pudding at. And all the while it’s remained within the same family, so that experts have now declared it the oldest family company in Britain. “It’s unbelievable,” he agrees, in a Dorse...