Prison governor faces jail over relationship with Liverpool drug boss

A prison governor has been found guilty of misconduct in a public office, after she started a relationship with a Liverpool drug gang boss nicknamed “Jesse Pinkman” after a character in the TV show Breaking Bad.Kerri Pegg, 42, has been told she faces jail after she accepted a gift of a £12,000 Mercedes C-Class car, which Anthony Saunderson paid for with 34kg of amphetamines.Saunderson, an organised crime boss now serving 35 years behind bars after being convicted of drug trafficking, is known to criminal associates as “Jesse Pinkman”, or “James Gandolfini” after the actor who played Tony Soprano in the mafia TV series.He had been one of Merseyside’s most wanted criminals over his part in importing £19m of cocaine in shipments of corned beef from Argentina.He was apprehended after law enforcement agencies broke into the encrypted EncroChat system, the phone network used by serious organised criminals

‘Friendship benches’ to offer free mental health support in Sussex

People in Sussex who are depressed, lonely or anxious are to be offered free, easily accessible support through the Friendship Bench, a pioneering pilot spreading around the world.The Friendship Bench scheme, which involves a wooden park bench being placed in a public space, offers a listening ear, in the shape of so-called “grandmothers” and “grandfathers” to anyone passing.These lay counsellors receive just two weeks of training. But analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the model resulted in an 80% reduction in depression and suicidal ideation, and a 60% increase in clients’ quality of life.After six months, 80% of clients who had sat down to chat with a lay counsellor were still symptom-free

Ill and disabled people will be made ‘invisible’ by UK benefit cuts, say experts

Hundreds of thousands of seriously ill and disabled people will become “invisible” and cut adrift from local support services as a result of the government’s £5bn programme of disability benefit cuts, experts have warned.Claimants who do not qualify for personal independence payment (Pip) or incapacity benefits would lose a “marker of need” with local councils and NHS bodies, making it “nearly impossible” for them to access help, said the consultancy Policy in Practice.This would “effectively erase some of the most vulnerable people” from the system – including those with life-limiting illnesses including cancer, multiple sclerosis and lung conditions – while making it harder for care services to deliver preventive supportMore than 230,000 disabled people will lose access to Pip and the incapacity element of universal credit as a result of the changes, losing at least £8,100 a year, Policy in Practice estimates in a briefing. Nearly 600,000 more who do not claim universal credit will lose or not qualify in future for Pip.On top of the direct financial hit, disabled people will struggle for visibility in local care systems that use disability benefit awards to deploy support and protection, from housing and council tax relief to debt enforcement safeguards

Trump’s tariffs could hit UK medicine supply, Wes Streeting warns

US tariffs could adversely affect the supply of medicines to the UK, the health secretary has said.Donald Trump announced a wide range of “reciprocal” tariffs on goods imported into the US, including a 10% levy on the UK as well as 20% on the EU, 34% on China and 46% on Vietnam.It triggered a rout on stock markets worldwide, with plunges not seen since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, wiping out trillions of dollars in value.Wes Streeting told Sky News that the chaos caused by the fears of a global trade war could disrupt supplies of medicine.“As ever in terms of medicines, there’s a number of factors at play,” he said

Health workers sent door to door in deprived areas to detect illnesses

The NHS is attempting to ease the pressure on GPs and A&E by sending a new type of health worker door to door in deprived areas to help detect illnesses before people need urgent care.Community health and wellbeing workers (CHWW) are already deployed in 12 areas of England, with 13 others to follow, in an attempt to improve poor and vulnerable people’s access to care.Each worker is responsible for 120-150 households, usually on a council estate, which they visit once a month to help residents with money, isolation and housing problems, as well as their health.Wes Streeting, the heath secretary, is examining the scheme as he pulls together ideas to help “fix” the NHS that may be included in the forthcoming 10-year health plan.GPs and other advocates of deploying community health and wellbeing workers believe they can help Streeting achieve two of the “three big shifts” in healthcare he has promised: moving care from hospitals into the community and making the NHS a prevention rather than treatment service

Hospitals in England could shed 100,000 jobs in response to cost-cutting orders

Hospitals in England could axe more than 100,000 jobs as a result of the huge reorganisation and brutal cost-cutting ordered by Wes Streeting and the NHS’s new boss.The scale of looming job losses is so large that NHS leaders have urged the Treasury to cover the costs involved, which they say could top £2bn, because they do not have the money.Sir Jim Mackey, NHS England’s new chief executive, has told the 215 trusts that provide health care across England to cut the costs of their corporate functions – such as HR, finance and communications – by 50% by the end of the year.But the NHS Confederation, which represents trusts, said some trusts believe complying with that edict could force them to shed anywhere between 3% and 11% of their entire workforce.If replicated across the 215 trusts, that could lead to job losses ranging from 41,100 to 150,700, given they employ 1