The NHS in Devon says it is preparing to take extra measures to keep patients safe because hospital emergency departments are under pressure due to doctors’ strikes.
In a statement, NHS Devon said it had entered OPEL 4 – the highest level of escalation – following the “continued pressures”.
It said this week’s walkout by junior doctors from 7am on Wednesday until 7am on Saturday has “left many hospitals facing difficulties in filling rotas, especially over the next two evenings – Thursday and Friday”.
And despite consultants ending their separate 48-hour strike on Thursday morning, “there remain far fewer clinical staff in hospital emergency departments than usual”.
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2:07
Public blame govt for doctors’ strikes
Measures to help A&Es cope could include people in the county who aren’t critically ill being re-directed from hospital emergency departments to other services.
This would allow the reduced number of staff on shift to care for the patients most in need of emergency treatment, said NHS Devon.
Ambulances who attend call-outs across Devon and parts of South East Cornwall may need to take patients to an emergency department that isn’t their local hospital where they may be seen sooner, depending on the needs of the patient and the pressures in the emergency departments at the time.
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Although health workers have been “working hard” to deal with the impact of the strikes, the NHS is now preparing to “deploy further measures if they are needed in coming days”, the statement also said.
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NHS: Double strike by doctors
‘We are counting on the understanding of local people’
In advice issued for local people, the NHS stressed when someone is seriously ill or injured, or their life is at risk – they should still call 999 immediately.
Patients who require urgent treatment, but do not have symptoms of a life-threatening condition, should call 111 or use the 111 service online, the advice added.
Devon’s chief medical officer Nigel Acheson said: “We have been doing everything we can to keep patients and colleagues safe through this period of extreme pressure due to the industrial action.
“We are ready to put in place all measures needed to make sure we can look after the people who most desperately need our help.
“We are counting on the understanding of local people at this difficult time and we encourage everyone to follow the advice we are giving today.”
Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi has been charged with three counts of attempted murder.
It comes after four prison officers were injured in an attack at the maximum security prison HMP Frankland in Co Durham on 12 April.
Abedi has also been charged with one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one count of unauthorised possession of a knife or offensive weapon.
Counter Terrorism Policing North East has said it carried out a “thorough investigation” of the incident with Durham Constabulary and HMP Frankland.
He remains in prison and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 18 September.
Three prison officers were taken to hospital with serious injuries following the incident.
Marnie’s first serious relationship came when she was 16-years-old.
Warning: This article contains references to strangulation, coercive control and domestic abuse.
She was naturally excited when a former friend became her first boyfriend.
But after a whirlwind few months, everything changed with a slow, determined peeling away of her personality.
“There was isolation, then it was the phone checking,” says Marnie.
As a survivor of abuse, we are not using her real name.
“When I would go out with my friends or do something, I’d get constant phone calls and messages,” she says.
“I wouldn’t be left alone to sort of enjoy my time with my friends. Sometimes he might turn up there, because I just wasn’t trusted to just go and even do something minor like get my nails done.”
Image: The internet is said to be helping to fuel a rise in domestic abuse among teens. Pic: iStock
He eventually stopped her from seeing friends, shouted at her unnecessarily, and accused her of looking at other men when they would go out.
If she ever had any alone time, he would bombard her with calls and texts; she wasn’t allowed to do anything without him knowing where she was.
He monitored her phone constantly.
“Sometimes I didn’t even know someone had messaged me.
“My mum maybe messaged to ask me where I was. He would delete the message and put my phone away, so then I wouldn’t even have a clue my mum had tried to reach me.”
The toll of what Marnie experienced was only realised 10 years later when she sought help for frequent panic attacks.
She struggled to comprehend the damage her abuser had inflicted when she was diagnosed with PTSD.
This is what psychological abuse and coercive control looks like.
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‘His hands were on my throat – he didn’t stop’
Young women and girls in the UK are increasingly falling victim, with incidents of domestic abuse spiralling among under-25s.
Exclusive data shared with Sky News, gathered by domestic abuse charity Refuge, reveals a disturbing rise in incidents between April 2024 and March 2025.
Psychological abuse was the most commonly reported form of harm, affecting 73% of young women and girls.
Of those experiencing this form of manipulation, 49% said their perpetrator had threatened to harm them and a further 35% said their abuser had threatened to kill them.
Among the 62% of 16-25 year olds surveyed who had reported suffering from physical violence, half of them said they had been strangled or suffocated.
Earlier this year, Sky News reported that school children were asking for advice on strangulation, but Kate Lexen, director of services at charity Tender, says children as young as nine are asking about violent pornography and displaying misogynistic behaviour.
Image: Kate Lexen, director of services at charity Tender
“What we’re doing is preventing what those misogynistic behaviours can then escalate onto,” Ms Lexen says.
Tender has been running workshops and lessons on healthy relationships in primary and secondary schools and colleges for over 20 years.
Children as young as nine ‘talking about strangulation’
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Lexen says new topics are being brought up in sessions, which practitioners and teachers are adapting to.
“We’re finding those Year 5 and Year 6 students, so ages 9, 10 and 11, are talking about strangulation, they’re talking about attitudes that they’ve read online and starting to bring in some of those attitudes from some of those misogynistic influencers.
“There are ways that they’re talking about and to their female teachers.
“We’re finding that from talking to teachers as well that they are really struggling to work out how to broach these topics with the students that they are working with and how to make that a really safe space and open space to have those conversations in an age-appropriate way, which can be very challenging.”
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Hidden domestic abuse deaths
Charities like Tender exist to prevent domestic abuse and sexual violence.
Ms Lexen says without tackling misogynistic behaviours “early on with effective prevention education” then the repercussions, as the data for under 25s proves, will be “astronomical”.
At Refuge, it is already evident. Elaha Walizadeh, senior programme manager for children and young people, says the charity has seen a rise in referrals since last year.
Image: Elaha Walizadeh, senior programme manager for children and young people at Refuge
“We have also seen the dynamics of abuse changing,” she adds. “So with psychological abuse being reported, we’ve seen a rise in that and non-fatal strangulation cases, we’ve seen a rise in as well.
“Our frontline workers are telling us that the young people are telling them usually abuse starts from smaller signs. So things like coercive control, where the perpetrators are stopping them from seeing friends and family. It then builds.”
Misogyny to violent behaviour might seem like a leap.
But experts and survivors are testament to the fact that it is happening.