NHS pay deal of 8% gets mixed response

Nurses and other NHS staff have been offered a three-year pay deal worth 8 per cent overall.

The proposed deal will give more than a million staff a pay increase of 2.75 per cent over the next year, followed by increases of 2.4 per cent in 2009-10 and 2.25 per cent in 2010-11.

Ministers accepted the recommendation of a pay review body to give a 2.2 per cent increase to hospital doctors and 3.4 per cent increase to dentists.

The Royal College of Nursing and Unison welcomed the deal, while the response from the Royal College of Midwives was lukewarm. The British Medical Association described the offer as inadequate and as a “further slap in the face”.

Schoolgirl sentenced

A schoolgirl who stabbed a young mother to death while high on drink and drugs must serve a minimum of 15 years, a judge at Newcastle Crown Court said. Jordan Jobson, 15, from Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne, had drunk lager and vodka and snorted cocaine before attacking Samantha Madgin, 18, last year.

Severed head charges

Two men have been charged with the murder of a Lithuanian woman, whose severed head was found by children playing on a beach in Arbroath, Scotland. Vitas Plytnykas, 40, and Aleksandras Skirda, 19, from Brechin, Angus, are also charged with theft and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Duke cancels visit

The Duke of Edinburgh has cancelled a public engagement planned for later this week as he recuperates from a chest infection. The Duke, 86, who was discharged from King Edward VII Hospital in Central London yesterday, had been due to join the Queen at a naval event in Dartmouth on Thursday.

Appeal refused

A restaurateur whose £25,000 compensation for a critical review in the Irish News was quashed at the court of appeal failed in a bid to take his case to the House of Lords. Ciaran Convery, owner of Goodfellas in Belfast, had an application for leave to appeal to the Lords turned down at the High Court in Northern Ireland.

Three are rescued from mudflats

Three people were rescued after their car became trapped on mudflats. Coastguards from Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, and crewmen from the Spirit Of Lelaina hovercraft were called to the scene, next to the Brean Down promontory, and brought the man and two children back to the beach.

Mark Newman, chairman of Barb, the charity that operates the hovercraft, said: “This incident once again underscores the danger of venturing out on to the mudflats.”

The driver, Ian Jackson, from the West Midlands, said he did not realise how dangerous the mudflats could be.

NHS executive seeks bigger payoff

MAIDSTONE The former chief executive of an NHS trust area in which more than 90 people died from a superbug has begun legal action over the amount of her severance pay (David Rose writes).

Rose Gibb resigned from Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust days before publication of a damning report on the trust’s handling of outbreaks of the bacterium Clostridium difficile.

The trust took legal advice and agreed that she should receive six months’ pay, or £75,000. But Ms Gibb has lodged papers in the High Court in an attempt to claim an undisclosed amount. When asked about reports that she was claiming £250,000, Ms Gibb said: “I don’t recognise the figures that you quote.”

The legal bid is to recover money said to have been agreed in a “compromise agreement” signed by her and the trust.

The trust said: “This is now a legal matter and the trust is unable to comment further.”

Steve Stroud, a relative of Doreen Ford, 77, a C. diff victim, said that Ms Gibb should “walk away and count her blessings”.

Social worker killed on home visit

PRESTON A social worker was stabbed to death on a routine visit to see a psychiatric patient living in supervised accommodation on a suburban estate.

The victim was named last night as Philip Ellison, 47, who was married with three children and lived in the Penwortham area of Preston. He was one of a team of carers from Lancashire County Council visiting properties in the Fulwood area that house patients from a nearby psychiatric unit.

Residents saw one social worker apparently fleeing in terror to raise the alert that a colleague had been stabbed and had been injured badly.

When police arrived on the estate at about 11.30am they found the alleged attacker in an “agitated state”. Soon afterwards witnesses saw a man being led to a police car in handcuffs.

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Brunskill, of Lancashire police, said: “We are treating this as a murder investigation.” A man aged 51 was arrested and is being held in Preston police station.

Macaw teaches his friends to swear

NUNEATON A foul-mouthed parrot has taught two other birds to swear, to the annoyance of the owner of a wildlife sanctuary. Barney, a seven-year-old macaw, left, has been swearing so often in front of a pair of African greys, Sam and Charlie, that they have picked up his language. Geoff Grewcock, owner of the Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, said: “They just sit there swearing at each other now. It sounds like a builders’ yard. These birds can live until they are 70 so there are potentially another 60 years of this to contend with.” In 2005 Barney was placed in solitary confinement after he told the local mayor to “f*** off” during a civic visit and then turned to two police officers and a vicar and added: “You can f*** off too.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Donor organ allowed child’s own heart to heal
• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating