Inside Politics: Javid warned of ‘tsunami of unmet need’ in social care

Sajid Javid has been warned that social care services are facing a “tsunami of unmet need” as the NHS struggles with the Covid surge. In another headache for the health secretary, doctors are threatening industrial action over his new GP surgery reforms. Elsewhere, Sir David Amess’s suspected killer planned to carry out other terror attacks and reports say the BBC is preparing to change up its politics team.

Inside the bubble

Several private members’ bills get second readings in the Commons from 9.30am

Coming up:

– Care minister Gillian Keegan on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.10am

– Labour MP and public accounts committee chair Meg Hillier on talkRADIO at 8.33am

IT’S FRIDAY THEN: It looks as if Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is in for a difficult and busy weekend ahead as he wakes up to some troubling headlines this morning. The first story comes from the Care Quality Commission, the social care watchdog, which is warning that England’s NHS and care services face a “tsunami of unmet need” over the coming winter. Ian Trenholm, the CQC chief executive, said care staff “cannot be expected to work any harder than they already are if we’re to get safely through this winter”. “What we’re seeing is many services are at capacity, and in many cases beyond capacity, and problems that traditionally could have been diverted can no longer be diverted,” he added. The dire warning comes as Covid cases and hospitalisations continue to rise and flies in the face of repeated claims by ministers that the NHS is not at present facing unsustainable pressure.

IT’S SATURDAY, SUNDAY: The second story is a warning from the British Medical Association, which is balloting its members on industrial action over Javid’s “name and shame” reforms to how practices are run. The government wants to see GP surgeries ranked in league tables to “name and shame” those that do not carry out enough face-to-face appointments with their patients. From early November, GPs will have to have their names and wages published if they earn an NHS salary of more than £150,000. The BMA says that forcing GPs to publish their earnings “provides no benefit to patients or their care, yet will potentially increase acts of aggression towards GPs, will damage morale amongst the profession, and only worsen practices’ ability to recruit and retain GPs”.

BOOSTER SHOT: It’s not all bad news for the health secretary today. A booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine offers exceptionally high levels of protection against coronavirus, including the Delta variant, new trial data shows. Pfizer said its trial of 10,000 people found that the risk of symptomatic infection was reduced by 95.6 per cent in people who received a third dose, compared to those who were vaccinated with two.“Based on these findings we believe that, in addition to broad global access to vaccines for everyone, booster vaccinations could play an important role in sustaining pandemic containment and a return to normality,” said Ugur Sahin, head of BioNTech. Record numbers of people are now coming forward to get the shoots following an advertising blitz. It came as 50,000 new virus cases were recorded in the UK for the first time since July. Meanwhile, Tory MP and Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is defying calls from Javid to wear face masks in the Commons, saying he and his colleagues don’t need them because they “know each other”. Not sure about the epidemiology on that one.

TERROR PLOTS: It’s been exactly one week since Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in his seat of Essex and his killing continues to reverberate around Westminster. Ali Harbi Ali is accused of murdering the Conservative MP. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that the 25-year-old has also been charged with preparing acts of terrorism between May 2019 and September this year, with previous plans to kill other members of parliament.

BEEB CHANGES: Reports suggest Laura Kuenssberg is in talks with the BBC about stepping down as the corporation’s political editor after some six years in the role, potentially moving to the Today programme. The rumour mill is in overdrive as to might take on the job – the biggest there is in political journalism. North America editor Jon Sopel recently announced that he is returning to the UK. The Beeb said Sopel’s role was being advertised internally and would not confirm that Kuenssberg was switching roles.

“GPs have been left with no alternative but to take this action. All efforts to persuade the government to introduce a workable plan that will bring immediate and longer-term improvement for doctors and their patients have so far come to nought,”

Chair of the BMA’s GPs committee Dr Richard Vautrey announces doctors are ready to take strike action over appointment plans.

“The @Dominic2306 brain dump about Starmer/Nandy contains some interesting stuff, herewith translated into Labourese ... 1/ Labour has no strategy because it has no surveillance function and a flawed decision making process. He’s right. That’s been said to every LOTO since Ed M…”

Writer and commentator Paul Mason on Cummings’s latest “brain dump”. Full post here.

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