New data on water quality, to update the 2019 assessment,  is unlikely to be published before the election, indeed a complete update is not now planned until 2025. – Owl

The UK government is to diverge from the EU’s standards for monitoring water quality in England, it can be revealed.

Helena Horton www.theguardian.com

Campaigners fear the change of approach could lead to more pollution in England’s rivers and waterways if the new measuring methods are less rigorous.

While in the EU, England was covered by the water framework directive (WFD), which meant a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law but the government removed the requirement to conduct annual tests.

This is the latest example of the UK diverging from EU environmental standards. Recent analysis found that many toxic chemicals and pesticides banned in the bloc since Brexit are not outlawed for use in the UK. Ministers have also sought to rip up EU-derived sewage pollution rules for housebuilders.

In 2019, the last time the full water assessments took place, just 14% of rivers were in good ecological health and none met standards for good chemical health. The government has said it does not intend to deliver a complete update until 2025, the latest permissible date under the new WFD.

The Guardian can reveal that the government will be using its own, as yet undisclosed methodology to assess river health. Activists say this may make it harder to compare the state of the country’s rivers against those in the EU, and will leave the public in the dark over pollution from sewage and agriculture.

Government officials met stakeholders to tell them about the change. A source from an NGO present in the meeting said: “When asked how this would affect assessments against the target set out in the government’s environment improvement plan, officials commented that this data would no longer be used for that purpose, and that Defra were looking to use the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) process to assessment performance. I question how developed the work on the NCEA is and whether this is suitable.”

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency confirmed to the Guardian that WFD data would no longer be used for the assessments. They said: “A pioneering partnership between Defra, Natural England, Environment Agency, Forest Research and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, NCEA blends capability, expertise and experience to build a richer, more comprehensive picture of our natural environment, monitoring quality and quantity, assessing the impact of or need for interventions and helping to manage and protect our natural capital.”

It is now unlikely that any data revealing whether or not the situation has improved since the 2019 study published in 2020, that shamed the government by showing no English river was in good chemical condition, will be published before the next general election.

Stuart Singleton-White, of the Angling Trust, said: “WFD has been the bedrock of us understanding the state of our rivers, lakes and groundwater. It does not give a full picture, but it does provide a useful starting point. Past assessments have shown things are getting worse, not better. To now not have a full assessment in 2022 and have to wait to 2025 … simply sows confusion and leaves the public in the dark when it comes to properly understanding whether our rivers are getting better or worse.”

Government officials told the stakeholder meeting that in 2022 only a limited number of water bodies were assessed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and budget cuts. They told those present that they would use other monitoring data to keep their assessments of water quality on track, but that they would not use the limited 2022 assessments to extrapolate to a national picture as this risked creating a bias in the data. The 2022 data showed that the condition of the sites assessed had worsened.

The Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesperson, Tim Farron, said: “Instead of clamping down on sewage dumping, ministers have let water companies off the hook and scaled back assessments so we could know exactly how much damage has been done. It is frankly a disgrace. The whole system needs a complete overhaul. That means abolishing Ofwat and setting up a new regulator with real teeth and ensuring that testing is carried out regularly so we can get a full picture of the damage being done to our countryside.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “Improving water quality is one of our highest priorities. We work through plans established under the water environment regulations to guide our permitting and enforcement. This work must be driven by a clear evidence base and we are working with partners to provide better information to enable this, including more real-time data. The next comprehensive update of classifications in all water bodies will be 2025. No significant changes to the classification methodology are planned – including changes to one out, all out. Every single water body will receive a classification.”

NHS bosses are using misleading figures to hide dangerously poor performance by A&E units in England against the four-hour treatment target, emergency department doctors claim.

Denis Campbell www.theguardian.com 

Some A&Es treat and admit, transfer or discharge as few as one in three patients within four hours, although the NHS constitution says they should deal with 95% of arrivals within that timeframe.

How well or poorly A&Es are doing in meeting the 95% target is not in the public domain because the data that NHS England publishes is for NHS trusts overall, not individual hospitals.

That means official figures are an aggregate of performance at sometimes two A&Es run by the same trust or include data for any walk-in centres, minor injuries units or urgent treatment centres that a trust also operates. Forty-eight trusts have two A&Es and many also run at least one of the latter.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), which represents A&E doctors, wants that system scrapped. It is urging NHS England to start publishing data that shows the true performance of every individual emergency department against the 95% standard.

“The current data is misleading,” Dr Adrian Boyle, the college’s president, told the Guardian. “It’s a good example of a lack of transparency and also of performance incentives. Being open about the long delays in some A&Es would shine a light in some dark places.”

Walk-in centre-type settings have much better performance against the four-hour target. That is because, although they also provide urgent and emergency care, most patients who use them have minor ailments and are quicker to treat, whereas those attending hospital-based A&Es are more seriously unwell and take longer to treat and discharge or find a bed for.

Boyle said the current system was flawed because it meant hospital leaders may be tempted to focus on improving four-hour performance in places such as walk-in centres, as high marks there may help to mask what were often low scores in hospital A&E units.

“The problem with the current data is that it encourages hospital managers to chase down the quick wins – to focus on low-acuity patients, such as people with a sprained ankle or cut finger, while neglecting the patients who are waiting on trolleys [in A&E] for admission to hospital,” he said.

NHS England collects but does not publish site-level data. But its practice of combining performance figures from A&Es and other settings “provides a figleaf and a smokescreen that hides poor performance and real harm that’s being done to patients through them having long stays in A&E,” Boyle added.

Earlier this month the Health Service Journal acquired and published site-level data for every individual A&E in England. It showed that between April and June this year Pilgrim hospital in Boston, Lincolnshire, managed to deal with only 33% of patients within four hours, the lowest proportion in the country. However, the performance of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals trust that runs it was much higher, at 45.3%.

Similarly, North West Anglia trust’s overall 56.3% performance disguised the fact that the A&E at its Peterborough city hospital site scored just 38.1%.

Publishing figures for each individual hospital would improve patient safety, Boyle said. “We know that there’s an increased risk of mortality once someone has spent more than six hours in A&E waiting for a bed. Our efforts must be to prioritise the sickest, the oldest and the most vulnerable patients, to reduce the risk of them dying. Our system as it is currently designed is making sick people more sick.”

Boyle said Steve Barclay, the health secretary, fully supported the RCEM’s call for greater transparency around A&E data. The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond when asked about the minister’s view.

NHS England said it would continue publishing aggregated data for trusts. A spokesperson said: “Data is published at the level of accountability – in this case trusts, which use site data to identify and tackle variation.

“As part of a national support package and measures in the urgent and emergency care recovery plan, the NHS offers on the ground tailored support at both site and trust level through tiered interventions and sharing good practice, which reduces variation both within and across systems.”

Britain’s most senior civil servant called Boris Johnson “mad and dangerous” and compared him to Donald Trump during the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been claimed.

Hugo Gye, Arj Singh inews.co.uk

Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, allegedly sent the message in summer 2020 when the then-Prime Minister was seeking to end all social distancing rules.

The WhatsApp message to colleagues is expected to be published in the coming days as the official Covid inquiry resumes its evidence sessions, The Times reported.

In it Mr Case apparently said that the idea of ending the pandemic rules when coronavirus infections were increasing was “Trump Bolsonaro level mad and dangerous” – a reference to the leaders of the US and Brazil, who both sought to downplay the danger posed by the pandemic.

The Government ended up allowing most businesses to reopen and weakening social distancing guidelines, but later had to reverse course and impose two more lockdowns as pressure on hospitals continued to grow.

Among those giving evidence to the inquiry next week are former No 10 chief of staff Dominic Cummings, communications director Lee Cain and Mr Johnson’s former principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, who acquired the nickname “Party Marty” during the scandal over lockdown-breaking gatherings in Downing Street.

Mr Reynolds will appear on Monday morning followed by Mr Cain in the afternoon, with Mr Cummings giving evidence on Tuesday morning.

Other notable figures appearing next week include former deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara, ex-permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care Sir Christopher Wormald and former NHS chief executive Baron Stevens of Birmingham.

Module two of the inquiry is focused on decision-making and political governance at the heart of the Government.

So we can expect questions about some of the biggest policy decisions and how they were made, including particularly when and how the Government decided to impose lockdowns – which has been a key focus of the inquiry so far.

Mr Cummings has in the past given scathing evidence in this area, infamously bemoaning the fact there are “no ninjas” and “no door” to a “quiet calm centre” in No 10 where there are officials “who actually know what they are doing”.

Former Chancellor George Osborne has claimed that Mr Cummings and Mr Johnson sent “disgusting and misogynistic” WhatsApp messages that will be released by the inquiry next week.

WhatsApp correspondence in which Mr Case refers to Mr Johnson’s wife Carrie as “the real person in charge” and said the Government was a “terrible, tragic joke” in a group including Mr Cummings and Mr Cain have already been published.

It emerged last week that the Government’s current chief scientific adviser Dame Angela Maclean referred to the Prime Minister as “Dr Death the chancellor” over the then-chancellor’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, when the Professor was an adviser to the Ministry of Defence.

Mr Cummings and Mr Cain have also previously criticised Mr Sunak’s claims that he was stopped from talking about “trade-offs” when the Government was deciding to impose lockdowns, meaning the Prime Minister’s conduct could come up.

As Chancellor at the time, Mr Sunak was also at the heart of Government decision-making and there could be revelations about his role from a number of witnesses.