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The number of people phoning 999 appears to have dropped in parts of England as thousands of ambulance staff and paramedics strike until midnight.

The West Midlands Ambulance Trust thanked people for heeding their advice to only call in an emergency as ambulance trusts reported receiving fewer calls.

The drop in calls comes as health leaders have urged people to still phone for an ambulance if they are in a life-threatening emergency.

It is feared some people in desperate need of help will not phone 999 during the strike action.

Hundreds of members of the army, navy and RAF have been drafted in to cover as paramedics, technicians, control room workers and other staff in England are on strike.

All Category 1 calls (the most life-threatening, such as cardiac arrest) are being responded to during the walkouts, while some ambulance trusts have agreed exemptions with unions for specific incidents within Category 2 (serious conditions, such as stroke or chest pain).

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‘We want to reassure patients’

Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said: “There may be a number of reasons why 999 calls are dropping – hesitancy may be a key factor during the industrial action.

“We want to reassure patients and the public that if they need emergency care, A&Es remain open.”

The Welsh Ambulance Service has said demand is “manageable” but any “influx of calls would put significant pressure on our service”.

A member of the military walks nearby an ambulance, on the day ambulance workers strike amid a dispute with the government over pay, near the NHS London Ambulance Service, in London, Britain December 21, 2022. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
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Members of the armed forces have been drafted in to help

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Members of the armed forces are not due to be sent on critical emergency callouts or to carry out clinical tasks.

Meanwhile, the East Midlands Ambulance Service said it was too early to say how the service was coping.

Up to half of its more than 4,000 workforce were GMB members who were striking.

South Central Ambulance Service said its main impact from strikes was patient transport services in Sussex and Surrey, rather than urgent and emergency care services.

The London Ambulance Service declined to comment on how services were running.

Ambulance workers take part in a strike, amid a dispute with the government over pay, outside NHS London Ambulance Service in London, Britain December 21, 2022. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
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Ambulance workers take part in strike action in London
Ambulance workers take part in a strike, amid a dispute with the government over pay, outside NHS London Ambulance Service in London, Britain December 21, 2022. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Thursday and Friday ‘expected to be busy’

Meanwhile, a chief executive of a large northern teaching trust told the Health Service Journal (HSJ) it had “so far not (been) as bad as I’d feared in terms of hospital pressures – in fact, (emergency departments) are less pressured than usual.

“We haven’t seen cars/taxis with patients arriving in large numbers but the problem is that much of the risk is not currently visible to us given people will be at home.

“We therefore expect very busy days on Thursday and Friday.”

It comes as the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan declared a critical incident and said it was full after facing “unprecedented pressures” in its A&E department.

The strike action has taken place as there is a bitter war of words between unions and Health Secretary Steve Barclay who has said he will not back down on pay.

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‘I cannot express how bad it is’ – paramedic

Health secretary accused of ‘blatant lie’

Mr Barclay said the Unite, Unison and GMB unions had “refused” to work with the government at the national level to set out plans for dealing with the strikes.

But the unions said all those agreements had been made locally and were in place.

From a picket line in Longford, Coventry, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham accused Mr Barclay of a “blatant lie” for saying ambulance unions had taken a “conscious decision” to inflict harm on patients.

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Health sec criticises timing of ambulance strike

Meanwhile, a paramedic in Nottinghamshire said patients’ lives have been at risk for a long time due to issues in the NHS.

Tom, 33, from the East Midlands Ambulance Service, said: “I’ve attended elderly patients who have been on the floor with broken hips for over 20 hours.

“They’ve been waiting that long that their limbs have started to become necrotic (dying tissue), resulting in major surgery to remove said limbs.”

Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham (centre), joins ambulance workers on the picket line outside ambulance headquarters in Coventry
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Sharon Graham (centre) joins ambulance workers on the picket line in Coventry

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Sky’s Jason Farrell looks at the impact of ambulance staff walkouts on patients and those who care for them.

‘Don’t get blind drunk’

A former Royal Marine who is among striking health workers described it as “demoralising” to spend entire shifts waiting outside hospitals with patients stuck in the back of ambulances as he demanded “something needs to change”.

Harry Maskers from Cardiff, who works for the Welsh Ambulance Service, said that while he was unable to strike during his military career, he was taking the opportunity to do so now, with “the kicker” being the government’s refusal to discuss the issue of pay.

Mr Barclay had earlier urged the public to “use their common sense in terms of what activities they do” while ambulance workers are on strike, while the medical director of NHS England Professor Sir Stephen Powis urged people not to get “blind drunk”.

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The walkout by ambulance staff and paramedics comes as nurses in Scotland overwhelmingly rejected the latest pay offer from the Scottish government, in a move which could see members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) take strike action for the first time ever.

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Health Secretary Steve Barclay says people should use

Meanwhile, National Highways workers will go on strike from Thursday until Christmas Day in the latest phase of industrial action by the biggest civil service union.

The strike involves members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) working as on-road traffic officers and regional operating centre operatives, in London and southeast England.

It comes as planned strikes by railway cleaners in a dispute over pay have been called off.

More than 1,000 cleaners, who are members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, would have been involved.

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Family of man who died on Benidorm holiday say they have new evidence of foul play

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Family of man who died on Benidorm holiday say they have new evidence of foul play

The family of a father-of-four who died on holiday in Benidorm say new evidence has further convinced them that foul play was involved in his death.

Nathan Osman, 30, from Pontypridd in South Wales, was on a long weekend break with friends in Benidorm in September 2024.

Less than 24 hours after he arrived, his body was found by an off-duty police officer at the bottom of a remote 650ft (200m) cliff on the outskirts of the resort.

He died from head and abdominal injuries after falling from height, a post-mortem found.

Local police said it was “a tragic accident” that occurred after Nathan left his friends in Benidorm to walk back to his hotel room alone.

But his family believe the investigation into his death has not been adequate, and that the local authorities have never considered the possibility of a homicide.

Their suspicions of foul play were first provoked by the fact that the remote location where Nathan was found was in the opposite direction to the hotel, and some distance away on foot.

They began doing their own investigating, building a timeline of events drawn from sources including CCTV, witness statements and Nathan’s bank records, which they say showed attempts were made to use his bank cards the day after he died.

After presenting their findings to Spanish prosecutors as evidence that others may have been involved, the case was reopened earlier this year.

Now, the family have told Sarah-Jane Mee on The UK Tonight that new phone data they have uncovered suggests he couldn’t have reached the spot he was found on foot.

Nathan's brother Lee, mother Elizabeth and father Jonathan speak to Sarah-Jane Mee
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Nathan’s brother Lee, mother Elizabeth and father Jonathan speak to Sarah-Jane Mee

After getting the phone back a couple of months ago, they say they tracked Nathan’s last movements through a health app.

“There’s a breakdown inside the app of every 10 minutes – the distance, pace, measurement of pace… every detail you can think of,” Nathan’s brother, Lee Evans, tells Mee.

“His pace wasn’t consistent with a fast walk or even a sprint.”

He said it was a faster journey, despite being uphill for 40 minutes, which has convinced the family that he was in a vehicle.

Pic: Family handout
Image:
Pic: Family handout

The family also went to visit the area where Nathan was found.

“We were a bit upset, but we were very pleased we went up there”, his mother, Elizabeth, says. “We could see… there’s no way he would have looked at that area and thought, ‘I’m going up here.’

“You can see straight off, there’s no clubs, there’s no hotels up there, there’s just the odd house dotted around. It was just out in the wild, there was nothing up there.”

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The family says the phone data has helped them determine that he died around half an hour after he was seen on CCTV walking towards his hotel in the early hours of the morning.

“It was really ridiculous to think that my son would’ve walked up there [the remote location where he died] at 4am in the pitch dark.”

After the family were interviewed by Mee in May, South Wales Police opened its own investigation into Nathan’s death.

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Nathan’s family speaking to Mee in May

Lee says the Welsh force has been “appalled” by the lack of evidence turned over from the local police’s investigation.

His and Nathan’s father, Jonathan, says: “No procedures were followed. Nothing was cordoned off, it wasn’t a crime scene. There’s loads of things that could’ve been taken. Tyre tracks, foot tracks, nothing. No DNA taken.”

Lee says: “All that we’ve done over the last year, this could’ve been squashed within the first week, two weeks [by local investigators].

“We’ve had to find out and keep delving into every possible outcome and overturn every stone possible. We started off with… a needle in a haystack, we had no direction or any support on which way to go.”

Nathan Osman. Pic: Family handout
Image:
Nathan Osman. Pic: Family handout

What does Nathan’s family hope for now?

Nathan’s family say they have located 27 CCTV cameras which could have picked Nathan up in the area, after local investigators didn’t find any.

Elizabeth says that after alerting Spanish police to the locations, they were told that the CCTV “wouldn’t be working” or that footage would’ve already been erased.

“They just surmised everything,” she adds.

But the family, who found the last known CCTV footage of Nathan earlier this year, are convinced there is still hope.

Lee says: “There’s a number of CCTV footage in that area. We know there’s a way of finding a vehicle of some sort.”

But the family admit they may never find whoever could be responsible for Nathan’s death because so much time has been lost.

Elizabeth concludes: “Nathan walks with us every day. We all believe that,” adding that “all we want” is to find the ones responsible for his death and for him to “have the respect of a decent investigation”.

Sky News contacted Spanish police, which declined to comment, adding the case is under judicial review and it doesn’t want to hinder the course of the investigation.

South Wales Police told Sky News: “South Wales Police is carrying out enquiries on behalf of HM Coroner and a family liaison officer has been appointed to provide support.”

Watch the full interview with Sarah-Jane Mee on The UK Tonight from 8pm this evening on Sky News.

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Man accused of Huntingdon train stabbings refuses to attend court

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Man accused of Huntingdon train stabbings refuses to attend court

A man accused of a mass stabbing on an LNER train in Huntingdon last month and separate attacks over the previous 48 hours, could face a trial next year.

Anthony Williams, 32, is charged with 10 counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a knife over the alleged attack on a LNER train from Doncaster to London on 1 November.

Williams, refused to attend Monday’s hearing at Cambridge Crown Court, and has yet to enter pleas. But the judge has set a provisional trial date in June.

He is charged with one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm over an alleged attack on a male police officer in custody.

Williams also faces another count of attempted murder and one count of possession of a knife over a separate incident at Pontoon Dock Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station, in east London, earlier on 1 November.

The aftermath of the mass stabbing. Pic: Reuters
Image:
The aftermath of the mass stabbing. Pic: Reuters

At Monday’s hearing, held in Williams’ absence, the case was joined with seven further charges, bringing the total number of charges to 21.

Williams, who said at an earlier hearing that he is of no fixed abode, had also failed to attend a hearing at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court on 19 November over the seven additional charges.

A forensic officer taking pictures on the train. Pic: Reuters
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A forensic officer taking pictures on the train. Pic: Reuters

The seven charges relate to the following incidents in the 24 hours leading up to the train stabbings:

• Attempted murders of a 14-year-old boy at Henry Penn Walk, Peterborough, on 31 October.

• Attempted murder of a 22-year-old man near Pleasure Fair Meadow Road, Peterborough, on 31 October.

• Attempted wounding of a 28-year-old man at Viersen Platz, Peterborough, on 31 October.

• Affray at a barbershop in Peterborough on 31 October.

• Possession of a knife in a public place at a footbridge near Henry Penn Walk, the Rail World car park and Queen’s Walk, all in Peterborough on 31 October.

• Theft of knives from Asda supermarket in Stevenage on 31 October.

• Assault of a 31-year-old man onboard a train travelling from King’s Cross to Peterborough on 1 November.

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Judge Mark Bishop said a further hearing will take place at Cambridge Crown Court on 28 January, with a provisional trial date set for 22 June.

Williams remains in custody.

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Agency staff covering for striking bin workers vote to go on strike

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Agency staff covering for striking bin workers vote to go on strike

Agency workers hired to fill the void in the wake of the Birmingham bin strikes have voted for strike action and will be joining the picket.

The first day of the action kicks off today, with a rally organised by the Unite union at the Smithfield depot in Birmingham.

The union said the numbers joining the strike were “growing daily” – but Birmingham City Council said just “a small number” of agency staff were taking part.

The replacement workers recruited by the Job&Talent agency, said they had voted in favour of industrial action “over bullying and harassment and the threat of blacklisting at the council’s refuse department two weeks ago”.

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From September: Birmingham bin strikes six months on

General secretary of Unite Sharon Graham. Pic: PA
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General secretary of Unite Sharon Graham. Pic: PA

Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said: “Birmingham council will only resolve this dispute when it stops the appalling treatment of its workforce.

“Agency workers have now joined with directly-employed staff to stand up against the massive injustices done to them.”

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Six months on, there’s no end in sight for the Birmingham bin strike

Birmingham bin strikes: How residents are taking action

She added: “Instead of wasting millions more of council taxpayers’ money fighting a dispute it could settle justly for a fraction of the cost, the council needs to return to talks with Unite and put forward a fair deal for all bin workers.

“Strikes will not end until it does.”

Strikes from the bin workers in Birmingham have been ongoing since January, and are likely to continue beyond May next year.

Birmingham City Council said it was “disappointed the dispute has not been resolved as Unite has rejected all our offers”.

“We are continuing to make regular waste collections and our contingency plan is working,” it added.

It also said it found “no blacklisting has taken place” after an investigation and that it “strongly” refuted Unite’s claims of bullying, which it said were “unfounded”.

Job&Talent has been contacted for comment.

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