Politics
Difficult People Literally Age You, Study Finds
“Hasslers,” or people who repeatedly “create problems or make life more difficult” for you, can literally age you, a new study published in PNAS found.
Stating that relationships like these are “not rare,” the researchers added that they are “disproportionately experienced by individuals facing greater social and health vulnerabilities, and consequential for ageing”.
And the more of these sorts of relationships, the worse the health outcomes seem to be.
How do “hasslers” affect our health?
This research showed that for every “hassler” in a person’s life, biological ageing sped up by 1.5%, or nine months.
The authors think this could happen because negative interactions chronically strain the body’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which helps to regulate stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
And, they posit, the chronic stress of talking to “hasslers” leads to lasting inflammation, which is linked to ageing if it lasts when the body doesn’t need it.
This could, they say, be an example of allostatic load; a form of “wear and tear” that happens when we try repeatedly to adapt to ongoing stress.
That might be why people with more “hasslers” fared worse, on average, on measures like self-reported health, psychiatric symptoms, epigenetic inflammation scores, and waist-to-hip ratio.
How common are hasslers?
Almost 30% of us have one or more in our lives, the paper stated.
But some people are more likely than others to have “hasslers”.
Who’s most likely to have hasslers?
What types of hasslers are there?
This study looked at kin and nonkin hasslers as well as spouse hasslers.
In this research, only the first two were found to affect participants’ biological ageing.
“Ties characterised by obligation, shared space, or structural interdependence, such as parents, children, coworkers, or roommates, are more likely to be hasslers than voluntary, self-selected ties such as friends, church members, and neighbours,” the paper reads.
Kin hasslers are the most linked to accelerated ageing, while nonkin hasslers seemed to affect mortality-sensitive metrics the most.
Politics
Labour accused of blocking jury trials advice
Allegations have been made that the government has controversially blocked Labour MPs from receiving advice on plans to cut jury trials. The group ‘Society of Labour Lawyers’ (SLL) appears to have been shut out of giving advice to ministers.
Karl Turner, who is leading a backbench rebel group of MPs from within Labour, has raised alarm that officials are blocking the SLL from briefing MPs on their professional legal opinion about the government’s proposed ‘reforms’. Turner told the Guardian:
The policy position of the SLL is that these measures are a terrible mistake, are unworkable and must be stopped but they have been blocked from sharing that position with Labour MPs in a briefing of the sort which one would expect it to be able to make.
Labour barking up the wrong tree
Under justice secretary David Lammy’s plans, the right for a jury trial will be removed from some defendants in yet another move to take from ordinary people. Apparently, the government now wants to treat crimes carrying sentences of three years or less as undeserving of the right to a fair trial. A right which will continue to be afforded to more serious offences.
This cut will be applied to either-way offences which receive a sentence lesser than 3 years. Lammy has faced widespread push back from lawyers across the UK in protest at this move which removes a crucial aspect to a UK citizen’s right to a fair trial.
Lawyer Peter Stefanovic has also condemned the shocking authoritarian move to block advice from specialists by the UK Labour government:
This is shocking. Labour lawyers ‘blocked’ from briefing MPs on jury trials overhaul before vote. The Prime Minister is completely out of control on this. MPs must come together and stop him from undermining and restricting a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy…
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) March 9, 2026
No informed decisions allowed for MPs, apparently
It’s deeply ironic that qualified lawyers cannot share their specialised knowledge, particularly when David Lammy – a qualified barrister himself – has demonstrated such ineptitude. Legality clearly isn’t a concern for the UK government, as we wrote yesterday:
Once again, the UK government is shown to be woefully inept with cabinet ministers unable to even exercise their supposed specialised knowledge. Lammy, a qualified barrister and first black Briton to study at Harvard, seems incapable, or unwilling, to be honest about the likely impact of his penny-pinching policy to remove jury trials in some criminal cases.
This latest revelation reinforces the reality that the UK government continues to make transparency harder in the way the state operates against its citizens. Only those with something to hide seek to prevent others from making informed decisions. Ordinary people should not suffer the consequences of the criminal justice system’s mismanagement by successive governments.
If the government can find money for bombs, it can find money to safeguard and strengthen justice.
This isn’t a new issue, they’ve always struggled with their priorities:
“Schools don’t have money for pens.”
Starmer is spending on bombs not schools, says teacher at London protest against “austerity 2.0” pic.twitter.com/XS5eRmnUHw
— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) June 7, 2025
Women MPs in favour of proposed changes
According to the Guardian, there are over 30 female Labour MPs pressing Lammy to continue on and not back down to the pressure. The letter from the MPs read:
We know from our personal experiences the ways in which our justice system is failing women and girls across this country.
Playing devil’s advocate, there is some merit to the argument that this could lead to swifter justice for female victims of abuse. Jury trials can sometimes result in offenders receiving lighter convictions when jurors project self-rationalised judgments about what victims supposedly ‘asked for’. As a result, victims often have to relive their deep trauma in court. This only works to compound the impact of abuse on their lives, while effectively facing greater scrutiny than their abusers.
However, we cannot prioritise one type of victim while risking creating countless more victims of our CJS. After all, a right to a fair trial is a right inherent to every citizen of the UK in accordance with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Instead of infringing rights further, work should be done to make trials by jury fairer, more efficient, and more effective.
Informed legal decisions are essential when ordinary people will ultimately bear the fallout. Abuse victims already contend with immense trauma; policymakers should not use their suffering to justify curbing others’ human rights.
The fact so many lawyers are deeply concerned about Lammy’s proposals but are being blocked from advising MPs is nothing short of a disgrace for our justice system.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
International recruitment and the NHS post-Brexit
Vilija Vėlyvytė looks at the use of overseas recruitment in the NHS since Brexit and argues that it should be a key part of any plan to solve workforce shortages.
The need to reduce the NHS’s reliance on international recruitment has become a recurring theme in the government’s response to NHS workforce shortages. It is echoed in Labour’s 10 Year Health Plan for England and is also expected to inform the next iteration of the NHS workforce strategy, anticipated in the coming months.
This post traces the evolution of international recruitment into the NHS since Brexit. It argues that international recruitment is a vital component of any credible solution to workforce shortages, and should be acknowledged as such.
The NHS has long used overseas recruitment to meet staffing needs. The UK’s membership of the EU facilitated this by allowing EU and EEA-trained health professionals to take up NHS employment on unusually low-friction terms offered by the EU’s framework for free movement of persons.
Brexit brought free movement to an end. Unless protected by settled or pre-settled status, EU nationals seeking to work for the NHS post-Brexit are subject to the same immigration rules as other non-UK nationals.
They must apply for the Health and Care Worker (HCW) visa that did not exist under EU law (introduced in 2020). It makes working in the UK conditional on meeting criteria relating to occupation, salary and sponsorship. Permission to stay is also time-limited: leave is granted for up to five years, after which the visa must be extended.
Notably, the UK maintains a ‘standstill’ regime for the recognition of healthcare qualifications obtained in the EU and EEA. This means that EU/EEA applicants can register and practice in the UK without additional competence assessments. A unilateral policy measure, the ‘standstill’ is not guaranteed to last indefinitely. It is due for review in 2028; if revoked, EU applicants would be subject to the procedures applicable to other internationally trained candidates, including individual evaluation of qualifications and – where required – standardised testing.
The post-Brexit legal and policy landscape has inevitably dulled the UK’s appeal to EU nationals. Nuffield Trust analysis shows that the share of EU/EEA-trained healthcare professionals registering to practise in the UK fell markedly after Brexit, with nursing most affected.
That decline has, however, been counterbalanced by a steep increase in recruitment from outside the EU/EEA. For those who never had the benefit of the free movement, the HCW visa – offering lower fees and expedited processing – became a gateway to NHS employment. The impact was dramatic. Nearly one in five NHS staff in England now report a non-British nationality, up from roughly one in eight before Brexit. Medicine and nursing show the starkest shift: in recent years, over half of newly-registered doctors and nearly half of newly-registered nurses trained outside the UK and EEA. Internationally recruited staff have at this point become indispensable to the NHS’s day-to-day service delivery.
Despite rapid growth in international workforce, shortfalls persist. The NHS vacancy rate was 6.7% in 2025 and is expected to rise over the next decade. The situation is worse in social care, where vacancies remain around 7% – down from 11% in 2022 (before the HCW visa was extended to social care roles).
The causes are multiple and complex: insufficient training capacity, chronic underfunding across health and social care, and persistent retention problems linked to pay and working conditions. The effects, moreover, cut across both sectors: shortages in social care delay hospital discharge and lengthen waiting times, while NHS gaps draw staff away from already fragile care providers. This dynamic leaves both systems more exposed.
The initial post-Brexit policy response was to lean heavily on international recruitment. The emphasis has since shifted towards domestic supply.
The 2023 NHS Longterm Workforce Plan ties large training expansion explicitly to becoming less reliant on international recruitment; the 2025 Immigration White Paper uses immigration policy to steer employers towards investment in domestic skills to ‘grow our domestic workforce’ and ‘end reliance on overseas labour’; and the 10-Year Health Plan for England, released in the same year, likewise signals a move away from ‘dependency on international recruitment’, aiming to reduce it to below 10% by 2035.
This rhetoric portrays international recruitment as something of an uncomfortable necessity – tolerated to plug current gaps, but politically undesirable and expected to recede as domestic capacity builds.
What, then, is the alternative plan? The current NHS workforce strategy, presented in the Conservative government’s 2023 Long Term Workforce Plan, focuses on expanding domestic training. It promises to double medical school places and nearly double nursing training places by 2031/32, projecting an overall workforce increase of around 60% by 2036/37. The Plan also pledges to improve retention through measures including enhancements to the physical working environment, support for flexible working, and pension-related reforms intended to keep staff in post for longer.
The Plan is ambitious but offers little clarity on implementation. How will education and training capacity be expanded? What will finance that expansion once the dedicated five-year funding ends? Can retention realistically improve without confronting issues of pay? These are some key questions that remain unanswered.
The Labour government has criticised the Plan as implausible and has committed to publishing a ‘refreshed’ workforce plan expected this spring.
Unlike the NHS, social care has no statutory long-term workforce plan. That omission is ever more striking in the current political climate: last year, the Home Office closed the HCW visa route to new care worker applications, as part of the wider effort to reduce lower-skilled migration. The government has also commissioned an independent review of social care, but its terms of reference require recommendations to remain ‘affordable’. This casts doubt on the prospect for meaningful change.
It is clear that there is no quick fix to the UK’s health and care workforce crisis. What should be resisted is the tendency to frame international recruitment as problematic in itself. Doing so undervalues the contribution of internationally recruited staff to the day-to-day functioning of the NHS and care services, and risks diverting attention from the real drivers of shortages, which are long-standing and largely domestic in origin.
By Dr Vilija Vėlyvytė, Lecturer in EU Law, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London and co-editor of forthcoming book The UK Regulatory Framework Post-Brexit: ‘Law Unbound.
Politics
LIVE: Darren Jones Announces Digital ID Launch in Commons
The ‘Chief Secretary to the PM’ says he wants a “national conversation” on Digital ID. Will be a brief one… A further press conference is planned for 3 p.m. UPDATE: A citizens’ assembly will help design the policy. Game over…
Politics
Ellie Goulding Gives Birth: Singe And Partner Beau Minniear Welcome Baby Girl
Chart-topping singer Ellie Goulding has announced that she has welcomed her second child.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Brit Award winner shared with her Instagram followers that she’d given birth to a baby daughter towards the end of last week.
Ellie wrote: “On Friday, I gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby girl. We are totally obsessed with her.
“It was fitting that I spent International Women’s Day with her and the incredible female team at St Mary’s, who provided me and my baby with extraordinary care and kindness. I will always be in awe of midwives.”
The Love Me Like You Do singer added that her family’s new arrival “fills me with so much joy”, particularly due to how excited and “so so happy” her son Arthur has been “to become a big brother to this little angel”.
She ended the post by tagging her partner, the American actor Beau Minniear, who she met on the set of her Destiny music video.

Todd Williamson/Shutterstock
The two-time Grammy nominee’s announcement came on the same day that her fellow 2010s hitmaker Paloma Faith shared the news that she’d also given birth on Friday.
Ellie is already a mum to a four-year-old son, Arthur, who was born in April 2021.
Arthur’s father is Ellie’s ex-husband, Caspar Jopling, to whom she was married between 2019 and 2024.
In 2022, while guest editing Marie Claire magazine, she wrote: “I never believed people when they said ‘motherhood really changes you’. I thought I’d be a bit tired, have different priorities, but no. It really has changed everything about my life.
“There have been so many chemical hormonal changes that I still can’t even compute. My brain is like a different brain and I’m still trying to figure that out. While I’ve been trying to figure out the changes to my mind and body, I have been spending a lot of time by myself to reconnect and rebalance.”
Ellie announced her pregnancy in December 2025, with the British star maintaining that wanted to continue working as long as possible while she was expecting.
“I didn’t want to become just a pregnant woman first,” she told Nylon magazine in January. “Not every woman has this luxury. I have amazing people around me. I have an amazing boyfriend. I do have it a little easier in that I do have amazing support.”
She added: “I’m still working every day and still writing every day. It’s just that I am growing a human inside me.
“I’m perhaps not the most, like, Mother Earth about it, if you know what I mean? It’s a beautiful thing to be able to grow a child, and I feel very lucky that I’m healthy – but it’s not all I am right now.”
Politics
Morgan Freeman’s The Dinosaur Narration Bloopers Are Totally Hilarious
If you’ve already torn through all four episodes of Netflix’s hit miniseries The Dinosaurs, you’re definitely going to want to check out the streaming giant’s latest gift for viewers.
The unique documentary premiered last week, and has already gone down a storm, with the show exploring the “rise and fall of the dinosaurs”, with narration from the incomparable Morgan Freeman.
On Monday evening, Netflix released blooper footage from Morgan inside the recording booth, and we’re delighted to report that it’s an absolute treasure trove.
From the international treasure introducing himself as “Morgan fucking Freeman” to the Oscar winner stumbling over some species’ trickier names (“Yutyranus? Let’s say Yutyrannus, ‘anus’ sounds like ‘ass’”), the clips are a must-watch for anyone who loved The Dinosaurs.
The Dinosaurs was co-produced by recent EGOT recipient Steven Spielberg, and serves as the sister show to his previous nature series Life On Our Planet.
Since its premiere earlier this month, the show has gone down a storm with critics (it holds a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on seven especially positive reviews) with particular praise for Morgan’s commentary.
It’s similarly proved popular with Netflix users and, at the time of writing, it’s the UK platform’s number one show, ahead of hits like Bridgerton, The Night Agent and Vladimir.

Over the last few days, the paleontology community has also been weighing in – and let’s just say they have a few notes.
The Dinosaurs director Nick Shoolingin‑Jordan previously told Netflix’s companion outlet Tudum that he wanted to “tell the full chronology all the way through and take the audience on a rip‑roaring adventure” with his latest venture.
Dan Tapster, its showrunner, added: “We had eight 50-minute episodes to tell the entire story of life on Earth [in Life On Our Planet], so there were lots of things where we could only scratch the surface – and the dinosaur story was absolutely one of them.
“With The Dinosaurs, we finally get to tell that story in full and celebrate it like no one has ever done before.”
Politics
Biodiversity: What It Means And Why It Matters For Gardening
Picture a green garden, and what do you imagine? Possibly uniform, manicured lawns, few “weeds”, and ideally, zero “pests”.
But speaking to HuffPost UK, Helen Bostock, a senior wildlife specialist at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), said gardens “do better when there are lots of different organisms to work in harmony.
“We’d love everyone to have a biodiverse garden because caring for our planet and global biodiversity starts at home.”
Here, she shared what a biodiverse garden means, why it matters, how it can help you, and how to achieve it.
What is biodiversity?
It means having a variety of species in one place. That can include plants, animals, fungi, and insects.
So, Bostock said, “A biodiverse garden is one that is bursting with many different forms of life, from the smallest micro-organism to the largest tree. It is a holistic community covering fungi, lichens, plants, invertebrates, mammals and birds.
At first glance, she continued, a casual observer might not notice much diference between a truly biodiverse and less well-rounded garden, “but glimpses can be had perhaps when a compost heap is turned and is alive with centipedes, worms and springtails.
“Or when the dawn chorus starts up in spring with a cacophony of bird song. Or when a curious gardener steps out after dark to hold a torch up to a white sheet to discover there are wonderfully named moths such as angle shades, brimstone, buff-tip and elephant hawk-moth calling their garden home.”
Why is biodiversity important in gardening?
“Environments are more resilient and function better when there is both species and genetic diversity, helping combat challenges such as climate change, carbon capture and pollution,” Bostock explained.
And even though gardens are pretty small-scale, they still play their part in the broader ecosystem.
“We’d love everyone to have a biodiverse garden because caring for our planet and global biodiversity starts at home,” the wildlife expert added.
How can biodiversity help to make gardening easier?
A properly biodiverse garden is brilliant for the environment. But if you need any more convincing, it can make your job a lot easier, too.
For instance, “A vibrant garden ecosystem is one that requires [fewer] inputs from gardeners – when natural predators are keeping the aphids in check, [fewer] sprays are needed,” Bostock said.
“It is also more productive – when insect pollinators are in abundance, our fruit trees will set heavier, higher quality fruit.”
Then, there’s the joy of nature. One study found that the more types of birds live near us, the happier we tend to be.
“A biodiverse garden also becomes a space that nurtures our own sense of wellbeing, full of joyful moments. It can inspire a deeper connection with the natural world, whether you are aged 1 or 100 (just ask David Attenborough!),” Bostock ended.
How can I achieve a more biodiverse garden?
- Leave some areas of your garden wild,
- Build a pond if you have room (you can start with a washing-up bowl),
- Establish a compost heap,
- Skip the pesticides and weedkillers,
- Embrace wildflowers, including “weeds” like dandelions,
- Plant for pollinators,
- Go peat-free to help preserve peatlands.
Politics
What Emotionally Immature Parenting Looks Like IRL
This article features advice from Sian Morgan-Crossley, psychotherapist and author of How to Heal From Emotionally Immature Parents, and Lianne Terry, a psychotherapist and counsellor.
We often hear of how today’s parents are cycle-breakers – choosing to bring up their kids in completely different ways to how they were parented, often to prevent patterns of trauma from repeating.
In fact, a recent Kiddie Academy survey of 2,000 parents revealed 41% of Gen Z parents are favouring “cycle-breaking” parenting.
As this conversation grows in popularity, terms are becoming popularised describing certain ways of parenting that can impact children far into adulthood – and one of these is ‘emotionally immature parenting’.
What is an emotionally immature parent?
“An emotionally immature parent is someone whose emotional awareness and capacity are limited in the parent-child relationship,” says Sian Morgan-Crossley, psychotherapist and author of How to Heal From Emotionally Immature Parents (Hay House, £14.99).
Emotionally immature parents might struggle in areas such as self-reflection, emotional regulation, and empathy under stress. “Many are practically supportive and physically present; but emotionally absent. The difficulty lies less in intention and more in emotional capacity,” she explains.
An emotionally immature parent, then, might struggle to deal with their child’s anger, distress, rejection, or growing independence. “When challenged, they may become defensive, take their child’s behaviour personally, or expect their child to adjust to their moods,” says the therapist.
“Because accountability can feel threatening, conflict often leads to withdrawal, criticism, denial, or blaming rather than to repair.”
These parents might also find it difficult to see their child as a separate individual and so “the parents’ own unresolved needs, sensitivities, or insecurities shape the emotional climate of the relationship”.

The impact of growing up with an emotionally immature parent
Counselling Directory member and psychotherapist Lianne Terry says children who grow up with an emotionally immature parent might struggle with emotional confusion (“struggling to understand or trust in their own emotions”) because their feelings were dismissed or criticised, or they had to prioritise a parent’s feelings over their own.
“These children may also be hyper-vigilant, so watching people’s moods carefully, trying to avoid conflict and feeling responsible for keeping others calm,” she explains.
Children can end up becoming their parent’s emotional caretaker; offering comfort, mediation and feeling responsible for adult problems, which can make them seem mature beyond their years.
“They may however find it very difficult to express their own needs, as this may lead to rejection, criticism or anger, and so they suppress them instead,” says Terry, which she warns can lead to high stress levels and undeveloped emotional regulation skills.
Once children reach adulthood, they might struggle with people pleasing, chronic self-doubt, fearing disappointing others, difficulties setting boundaries, and prioritising others’ needs over their own.
“They may have difficulty with trusting in their relationships, so being overly independent or conversely anxious about being abandoned,” continues Terry.
It’s not uncommon for people who grew up with this type of parent to find themselves in repeating relationship patterns, gravitating to emotionally unavailable partners or taking on the caretaker role, too.
They might also find it difficult to identify or express their own emotions.
Signs of emotionally immature parents, according to experts:
- You often feel triggered and overwhelmed by your child’s emotions.
- You take your child’s behaviour personally.
- You need you child to behave a certain way to feel okay.
- You have difficulty regulating your own emotions (Terry notes: “In general, you may find that you shut down, withdraw or explode instead of expressing your feelings constructively”).
- You struggle to repair with your children after conflict or admit when you’re wrong.
- You feel threatened by your child’s independence or criticism of them.
- You avoid difficult emotions – you might say “you’re fine” or “stop being silly”, or feel uncomfortable when they’re sad, angry or anxious.
- You think in a very black and white way, seeing behaviour as “good” or “bad” rather than developmental.
- You struggle with boundaries – either being too rigid or controlling, or being too permissive, because conflict feels too difficult to manage.
“The key question isn’t: ‘am I emotionally immature?’,” Morgan-Crossley, explains, “but rather, ‘can I stay emotionally present when my child is distressed, angry, or different from me?’
“Emotional maturity is not the absence of triggers; it is the ability to take responsibility for them.”
I think I’m an emotionally immature parent – what can I do?
If you recognise some of the above signs in yourself, take a deep breath. The work begins here. Morgan-Crossley suggests the most constructive response is self-reflection and working through your own childhood experiences.
“Taking responsibility for their own emotional responses and finding ways to work through their own childhood issues – whether through therapy, reading or psychoeducation – can all greatly improve their parenting relationship with their child,” she explains.
Terry says a great first step for parents who identify in this way is to work on developing emotional awareness.
“Learning to identify how you feel is a great foundation. Some things that might help with this include: journalling, emotion wheels, mindfulness or just simply asking yourself ‘What am I feeling right now?’,” she says.
Then, once you recognise your emotions, you can start to regulate them, says the therapist, and the key here is to calm the nervous system. Things that will help with this include: breathing techniques, somatic awareness and pausing before reacting, she says.
Another key part of navigating emotionally mature relationships is repairing after conflict – so this might look like apologising, acknowledging feelings, admitting when you’re wrong, and reconnecting with your child.
“Therapy can be really helpful in allowing individuals to process childhood experience, understand triggers and build healthier relationship patterns,” Terry ends.
Politics
NHS must end postcode lottery on flexible working
NHS leaders must make flexible working the norm to deliver better patient care and help resolve the staffing crisis, say unions.
A coalition of 18 unions representing every part of the NHS workforce has launched a new initiative to promote more choice for staff over how, when and where they work.
The Get Ahead on Flex pledge aims to get employers to speed up their progress on working arrangements that allow more freedom. This can include team-rostering and ‘any-hours’ contracts, offering staff the hours they want to work from the outset.
Flexible working in every job
Those who sign up will commit to highlighting flexible working in every job advert. They’ll set targets to increase the number of approved requests, publish data (such as the number of requests staff make) and train all managers on how to champion choice for workers.
Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and Milton Keynes University Hospital have already signed up to the pledge. It’s also got backing from equality campaigners including Kate Jarman, who champions flexible working the NHS, and Professor Alison Leary from London South Bank University.
At present, all NHS workers have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment and to make unlimited requests without providing a reason.
However, health unions say all too often accessing the flexibility they need is a struggle for staff, including those with childcare and other family commitments. The inconsistent approach by employers has created a postcode lottery across the NHS.
Some staff are having to accept less favourable contracts – or bank shifts, which are lower paid – in return for gaining flexible working. Employers often reject applications from workers who want to determine their own schedule and instead insist they must fit in with rigid shift patterns.
One health worker, who cares for her mother, said:
I applied for flexible working twice, but it was declined both times. I used all my annual leave to have weekends off [to care for her mother]. It meant I had no holidays or time away for me for several years until we got a different manager.
Raising standards
The health unions say flexible working should become the standard, to help attract and retain experienced staff. Tens of thousands of workers have already left the health service due to poor work-life balance, according to data.
Get Ahead on Flex is also aiming to ensure managers know how to handle requests in a way that benefits individual staff. The campaign encourages them to take the initiative to redesign jobs and services to better meet the needs of staff and patients.
The benefits of flexible working, such as increased performance and higher quality care for patients, are well-understood at the policy level. But the unions say financial and other pressures on the health service get in the way of real change.
In England, a new standard on flexible working is expected to be introduced for NHS employers in April as part of the government’s 10-year workforce plan.
Trusts who sign up and meet the commitments of the Get Ahead on Flex pledge will already have a head start on implementing the new standards, say the unions.
And in 2027, tougher statutory requirements on flexible working are due to come into force for all employers.
Chair of the NHS unions and UNISON head of health Helga Pile said:
Too many NHS staff are struggling to balance work with other parts of their life including caring commitments. This affects their health and well-being, and forces many to consider jobs elsewhere.
The NHS has long talked about the importance of improving flexible working options. However, old-fashioned attitudes and rigid one-size-fits all shift patterns are still getting in the way.
This pledge provides a real opportunity to improve working life for staff and give patients a better service.
Campaign lead for the NHS unions on flexible working and Society of Radiographers head of industrial relations Leandre Archer said:
Flexible working shouldn’t depend on which employer you work for or who your manager happens to be.
NHS staff deserve fair, consistent access to flexibility so they can deliver the best possible care without sacrificing their own wellbeing.
The Get Ahead on Flex pledge is a vital step towards ending the postcode lottery and making flexible working a genuine reality across the NHS.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
Snow In The UK: Where And When Could It Fall?
January was the month of many storms (Goretti feels like it happened a year ago, but hey). Then came the long, wet February, which saw incessant rain across the UK.
“Blood rain” aside, March so far has provided a brief sunny respite. But in this year’s signature whiplash fashion, some parts of the UK might see snow this week, the BBC said.
When might it snow?
The Met Office said “wintry” conditions will begin to affect parts of the UK this Thursday to Saturday (12-14 March).
It comes with “unsettled,” windy conditions.
Friday is expected to be the coldest day.
And the crisp spell will likely wrap up by the end of the week.
Why are the conditions changing so quickly?
The jet stream is “ramping up”, the BBC reports, bringing with it a series of increasingly cold and wet weather fronts.
The conditions are expected to be very windy, which could prevent overnight frost from forming, but during lulls, some especially “prone” areas could dip below freezing.
Where might snow fall?
Because strong winds are expected to bring sleet and cold showers to the North of the UK (including in Scotland, where gales are predicted later in the week), snow might fall on high ground in the North, though it’s not expected to settle.
And hailstorms are possible across the country, even in the south.
Why is it so hard to predict snow in the UK?
It’s hard to say for sure whether this week’s weather conditions will definitely lead to snow.
It’s generally hard to tell when snow will fall in the UK.
The wind that blows in cold air and the wind that blows in wet air come from different directions, meaning very chilly precipitation, which is needed for snow, is a relatively rare occurrence.
Even when it does happen, “A lot of the rain that we see in the UK, at all times of year, was snow when it started falling, but has fallen into air that is warmer than 0⁰C and melted,” the University of Reading wrote.
Politics
The Dinosaurs: What Do Paleontologists Think Of Netflix’s Hit Series?
Since premiering on the platform last week, Netflix’s new documentary The Dinosaurs has become a huge hit with viewers.
A sequel of sorts to the nature series Life On Our Planet, the new venture was co-produced by EGOT recipient Steven Spielberg and features narration from the unmistakable Morgan Freeman.
The four-parter tells “the story of the rise and fall of the dinosaurs — where they came from, why they mattered, how they evolved and how they met their ultimate fate” using cutting-edge visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic, the team behind the sensational ABBA Voyage.
So far, The Dinosaurs has gone down a storm, earning a rare 100% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes (based on seven positive reviews) and at the time of writing, it’s still the number one show on Netflix UK, ahead of the likes of Bridgerton, The Night Agent and Vladimir.
But what’s the reaction been like within the community of dinosaur experts?
Over the last few days, a Reddit thread inviting paleontologists to weigh in has been popping off, with a mix of reactions.
One of the most popular answers came from user u/Maip_macrothorax, who has described it as a somewhat “shallow” watch, albeit not a “terrible” one.
“While it suffers from similar issues to Life On Our Planet (like the ‘evolutionary superiority’ framing), it’s to a much lesser degree,” they wrote. “The pacing here is also a lot better.
“I just wish they explained some things better,” they added, while criticising some of the information for being on the “misleading” side.
Fellow dino expert u/mmcjawa_reborn had a similarly mixed reaction, hailing the show for featuring “a lot of critters” who don’t always get a moment to shine – specifically naming “Procompsognathus, Rhynchosaurs, Marasuchus [and] Tanystropheus” – and praising the use of visual effects to bring the dinosaurs to life.
However, they agreed that the narration had “varying accuracy” while some character designs veered towards “dull”.
“Worth a watch… just wish the script for the narration was better,” they surmised.

Another viewer, u/endmaga2028, admitted they were “disappointed” at certain mispronunciations early on in the series, though others were less critical on this subject.
Meanwhile, u/Practical_Reveal9477 was even less impressed, calling the show “overly dramatic” and with “little educational value”, suggesting that “all signs pointing to a simple and quick cash grab”.
On the other hand, u/GuessBrilliant9167 admitted they were moved to tears by the final episode, even if they conceded the show on the whole was “a bit more of the same”.
“The bird/dinosaur montage and comparing behaviours made me very emotional and reminded me how resilient and successful dinosaurs were and still are today,” they enthused.
Director Nick Shoolingin‑Jordan previously told Netflix’s Tudum outlet that he wanted to “tell the full chronology all the way through and take the audience on a rip‑roaring adventure” with The Dinosaurs.
Showrunner Dan Tapster added: “We had eight 50-minute episodes to tell the entire story of life on Earth [in Life On Our Planet], so there were lots of things where we could only scratch the surface – and the dinosaur story was absolutely one of them.
“With The Dinosaurs, we finally get to tell that story in full and celebrate it like no one has ever done before.”
The Dinosaurs is now streaming on Netflix.
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