08/02/2017 BBC News at One

Government attempts to ease the pressure on England's NHS

by integrating health and social care aren't working.

The government's spending watchdog says merging the two has neither

saved money nor cut hospital admissions.

Meanwhile questions in the Commons this lunchtime over

whether the government offered a council a special deal to stop

a potentially embarrassing referendum on social care funding.

A major Brexit milestone, MPs vote tonight on giving

the Prime Minister the authority to start the formal process

A woman denied her late long-term partner's pension wins a landmark

supreme court appeal that could affect millions

Rolf Harris is cleared of three historic sex offence allegations.

A jury fails to reach a verdict on four other charges.

The United Nations warns of a catastrophic

And the greatest free show on earth - the murmuration of starlings

And coming up in the sport on BBC News, Leicester manager

Claudio Ranieri denies there is a crisis at the club

who have given him a vote of confidence ahead of the FA Cup

Good afternoon and welcome to the BBC News at One.

Joining up health and social care services in England is one

of the government's big ideas for easing the pressures

But according to a report out today, efforts to treat more patients

in the community have neither saved money, nor taken

The scheme - called the Better Care Fund -

was meant to save the NHS half a billion pounds in its first year.

The Department of Health insists it's too soon to judge

Here's our health correspondent, Dominic Hughes.

Bringing together the care received in homes like this one and the wider

NHS is more complicated than it seems.

The aim is to prevent people from being admitted

to hospital in the first place, but when they are,

This distinctive red bag contains patients' notes,

and it travels with them to hospital, meaning less confusion

We've been able to reduce length of stay for those care home

residents who go into hospital by four days, which is massive

when you think how the system is so stretched at the moment.

Today's report says introducing joined up care has proved harder

So far more than ?5 billion of NHS and council money has failed to cut

In 2015, the aim was to reduce emergency admissions to hospital

But the following year admissions actually went up

by more than 80,000, costing an extra ?300 million.

And the number of days lost because people were stuck

in hospital was meant to be reduced by nearly 300,000, but in fact

MPs who looked at the plans two years ago say they warned then

They need to look at why this isn't working.

What is it that's stopping the beds being available even when there is,

at least in the short term, some money being

Despite today's criticisms of the efforts so far,

most health experts believe integrating care is

I think in future the key will be managing people more

That will require more resources, but it also requires the way

services are organised so that elderly people, for example,

who have lots of different complex conditions, are more effectively

managed in their own homes rather than having to be

The Department of Health in England says it's too soon to judge

But today's report shows bringing together health and social care

is a complex task that will take time.

Our Assistant Political Editor Norman Smith is in Westminster.

It was the whole issue of social care that dominated the early part

of prime ministers questions? Extraordinary developments this

lunchtime. Because you may remember last month 's Surrey County Council

announced they were going to hold a referendum to raise their local

council tax by 15% to pay for social care, such was the underfunding of

the service in the county. Now, that provoked alarm in government because

it was profoundly politically embarrassing to have a Tory, solidly

Tory county council, the Chancellor and the Health Secretary both local

MPs, threatening to raise council tax by 15%. More than that, the

referendum would risk reinforcing the growing sense of crisis over

social care. Yesterday, however, Surrey announced they weren't going

ahead with the referendum. This lunchtime Jeremy Corbyn suggested he

knew why that was. He has obtained leaked texts between the leader of

Surrey Council, David Hodge, and an official in the Department for local

government in which it seems there may have been some sort of secret

sweetheart deal to avoid Surrey going ahead with the referendum.

I've been given one of these texts, let me read it to you, this is from

David Hodge to this official in the Department for local governor. He

says "Nick, I've received clarification from my Chief

Executive, who confirms, and there are two people named here, have

spoken, and the numbers you indicated are acceptable for me to

call off the R. No guesses to what the R stands for. He goes on, if

it's possible for that info to be sent through I can then revert back.

Then, I really want to kill this off. It suggests that some along the

line David Hodge was given reassurances or even, who knows,

maybe there was some suggestion of extra funding which enabled him to

decide not to go ahead with the referendum. Now, that would be a

hugely politically toxic moment if it was true. I have to say Mr Hodge,

in the last few minutes, has issued a statement denying that, saying

that there was no secret deal. Although telling me he goes on to

say that he is confident the government now understands and

appreciates the real pressures on social care. Norman Smith with the

latest from Westminster, thank you. Our social affairs correspondent

Alison Holt is here. With an ageing population, social

care is one of the biggest problems facing the NHS and there seems to be

no obvious solution. We are seeing that time and time again over the

last winter and in the summer months you could see the page on the NHS.

The better care fund which the National Audit Office was critical

of is meant to be part of the answer, getting health and care

working together better so they free up money to be used elsewhere. I

have to say, where I've been into places where this is happening,

staff are often evangelical about it because they can see that it makes a

difference, makes life simpler for patients. At the fundamental problem

is that we do have an ageing population, and also people are

living longer with complex needs and that means that they need more

support. Either in hospital or, preferably, in their own homes. And

that's coming at the same time as local authorities who pay for social

care are having their budgets squeezed, and that's... Councils

have been warning for a long time that this is coming down the track

and we seem that in terms of increased admissions and delayed

discharges. Delayed discharge is something we will look at in more

detail on the news at six this evening. The government, of course,

will say that the better care fund is the first step, one of the

elements to getting the whole system to work much better for the needs of

the population. Thank you. MPs will vote this evening on giving

the Prime minister the power to trigger Article 50 -

the start of the formal process Jeremy Corbyn is facing a possible

revolt in the Labour ranks after imposing a three line whip

on his MPs to back the bill. Our political correspondent Carole

Walker reports from Westminster. Have you seen off the

rebels, Prime Minister? The Prime Minister hopes that

by tonight she will be a significant step closer to beginning the formal

Brexit negotiations. Last night the government

comfortably won a series of votes There are more votes

later but ministers hope the legislation will complete

all its Commons stages tonight. For once the Labour leader wants

to support the government. He has ordered all his MPs

to vote for the bill. But that has already led

to three resignations from his Shadow Cabinet,

and there could be more. The Shadow Business Secretary Clive

Lewis said he has yet It is a really tough call

and I think lots of MPs are really having a tough time at the moment

on this one. One final thought,

if you defy the whip tonight, will you resign your position

in the Shadow Cabinet? I think if you defy

the whip, you do resign. In the Commons, the Prime Minister

was challenged by the SNP leader who said she did not have support

in Scotland to press ahead So given that the Scottish

Parliament has voted overwhelmingly against her approach,

and all bar one MP representing a Scottish constituency in this

House of Commons has voted against her approach, she does not

have an agreed UK-wide approach. Theresa May insisted she would

negotiate for the whole of the UK. The Supreme Court was very clear

that the Scottish Parliament does not have a veto on the triggering

of Article 50. The bill that is going through

the house obviously is giving the power to the government

to trigger Article 50. The bill also has to be considered

by the Lords but ministers are confident they will get it

through Parliament in time to start the formal Brexit negotiations

by the end of March as planned. Of course that will be just

the start of the much bigger battle with other European leaders over

the terms of our Carole Walker, BBC

News, Westminster. The entertainer, Rolf Harris,

has been cleared of three sex offences by a jury

at Southwark Crown Court. But the jury couldn't reach verdicts

on four other counts. Let's speak to our correspondent

at the Old Bailey, Sangita Myskar. Tell us what happened in court.

That's right, Rolf Harris, in this trial, faced a total of eight

counts. Today the jury took just over 26 hours to return three of

those verdicts. They told the judge that he was going to be cleared of

three counts but that they could not reach a verdict, even a majority

verdict in five of those counts. The prosecution then stood up and asked

for seven days to consider whether or not it wanted to ask for a

retrial on those five counts. Now, Rolf Harris has maintained his

innocence throughout this trial. And those accusations and allegations

came from seven women in total and they dated back 40 years. But of

course Rolf Harris will not be walking free from this court today

because he is already serving time at Stafford prison for assaulting

four other women and girls. Thank you.

A woman who was denied payment's from her long-term partner's pension

after he died suddenly has won a landmark Supreme court appeal

which could affect millions of other people who are co-habiting.

42 year old Denise Brewster challenged a ruling that she was not

automatically entitled to his local government pension because they

weren't married and he hadn't filled in the appropriate form.

Our personal finance correspondent, Simon Gompertz is with me.

Just explain what happened. Well, disease had been living with Lenny,

her partner, for ten years, before he died suddenly at the age of 43 --

Denise had. And he had been working in the Northern Ireland public

transport system. And through that he was earning a salary linked

pension and she had the right to share in it if he died. However, as

you say, there was a form to be filled in called a nomination form,

and he hadn't done it. Now if you are married or in a civil

partnership you didn't have to fill in the former. And what the Supreme

Court found was that it was against her human rights according to the

European Convention on human rights which lay down that you have the

right to enjoy your possessions but crucially that should be secured

without the scrum and eight, and they said that this was an unlawful

discrimination. And it could affect an awful lot of cohabiting couples.

There are 12 million people who are members of public sector pension

schemes, a lot of those nurses, teachers, civil servants, police and

fire officers, they have these nomination forms if they are

cohabitees rather than married partners. The indication is they

will be affected by this. Of those 12 million people, some are working,

some are already retired, so that's two groups. It's very likely these

nomination forms will be got rid of, people don't tend to fill them in

any way and that's why the problem occurs. What about those who have

reached the age of retirement and have not been receiving a pension

they might have been entitled to. The Treasury say they are examining

duplications carefully. Three federal appeal

judges in California have been hearing arguments

for and against reinstating President Trump's temporary travel

ban on people from seven President Trump says he's trying

to keep America safe. But two US states have argued

that the order discriminates against Muslims as Richard Lister

now reports from Washington. Behind these walls, lawyers

were doing battle in the biggest Should his travel ban be

reinstated or thrown out? The proceedings were

streamed on the Internet. The executive order at issue puts

a temporary pause on entry for individuals from seven countries

that Congress and the last president determined in a similar context pose

special risks in terms of terrorist How many federal offences have

we had, been committed by people who came in with visas

from these countries and... The answer was that

there haven't been any. But those alleging the ban

harms people in the US What's the irreparable harm

to the State of Washington? We detailed a number

of irreparable harms, your honour. We had students and faculty

at our state university who were stranded overseas,

families separated, people from universities

stranded overseas. We had families that were separated,

we had long-term residents who were not able to visit

their relatives without knowing President Trump will have

to wait a little longer He made clear he will take the case

to the Supreme Court if he loses. We are going to take

it through the system. Very important for the country,

regardless of me or whoever We have to have security

in our country. He did win one important

victory, though. Confirmation of his embattled

nominee for Education But only after the vice president

voted to break a deadlock in the Senate after two Republicans

rejected the President's choice. These law enforcement officers joked

that Mr Trump was the new sheriff in town but with his full Cabinet

still not in place and his immigration policy stalled,

he is finding limits on his power. Richard Lister, BBC

News, Washington. Our correspondent Kim

Ghattas is in Washington. How long could this legal battle go

on? We expect the court to rule by the end of the week possibly. It was

quite extraordinary to hear those arguments being made over the phone

into the court, very unusual. But this case has gripped the nation and

more than 150,000 people tuned in to this conversation which was being

streamed on line, on the court website. Thousands more watching

live on television, all the news channels carried it live as well. It

was a very lively technical discussion and one that showed the

importance and the weight of the judicial branch at this time in this

country. As we heard the Justice Department making the argument about

national security and almost saying that the president? Decision in this

executive order should not be put in question. The Attorney General of

the Washington State which brought the case arguing on the

constitutionality of this saying it discriminates against Muslims.

Donald Trump the president is making clear how he feels about this, again

on Twitter this morning saying the US should win the case otherwise he

says we can never have security or safety in our country. He will be

criticised for that in for splitting the people against the courts and

also deflecting any responsibility for any potential future terrorist

attacks in this country. Thank you. Attempts to ease the pressure

on England's NHS by integrating health and social care aren't

working - according to And birds of a feather

flock together. We're in the Lake District

to witness one of the nature's Greg Clarke says he'll

quit as the FA chairman if the organisation can't win

government support for its reform A motion of no confidence

in the FA will be debated For over a week now hundreds

of thousands of Romanians have taken to the streets in nightly

demonstrations to protest over plans to decriminalise some

forms of corruption. parliament has been debating

a vote of no confidence Our correspondent Nick

Thorpe is in Bucharest. Just in the last few minutes the

Romanian Parliament has defeated that vote of no-confidence. So the

government has survived. But this leaves the basic problem and what

has brought these people onto the streets still very much on the

agenda. The government certainly would like to move on, it was only

elected two months ago and has only been in place for one month. It

wants to move on to its largely economic agenda. But let's take a

look at those protests from the last few days.

These have been the biggest demonstrations since

The people are angry about a government which would have

softened the penal code and allowed many public officials jailed

The decree was cancelled at the weekend, but now

the protesters want the government to resign.

We will keep coming every night until they resign.

We don't mind if the same parties that won the election

But we want to make the point that you cannot abuse the people

It is not going to happen any more in this country.

We want our government to resign because we cannot

Because they come in in the middle of the night, passing laws

Today the focus shifted to Parliament and a no-confidence

vote in the Social Democrat-Liberal coalition government.

On paper they are still strong, they have only

But in practice they have been badly wounded by the size

This is a country where demonstrations are often successful.

Only two years ago a previous Social Democratic government

was brought down, also after a corruption scandal.

Protesters are well organised, with excellent communications.

The protesters have an important ally in President Klaus Iohannis.

When he accused the governing Social Democrats of defending

their own corrupt interests, their MPs left the chamber.

All eyes in Romania are now on what the government will do next.

So the government now has survived this no-confidence vote but the

president has made clear to them that they simply cannot carry on

with business as usual. The government then we'll try to shrug

off the protests, it will be interesting to see in the coming

days how many more people turn out especially at the weekend and hold

the government and indeed the president of Romania takes this

board to try to get the country out of the current very deep political

crisis. The United Nations is warning

that Yemen is facing a "catastrophic" famine,

with more than three million people It's launched an appeal

for a billion pounds. For more than two years,

there's been fighting between government forces,

and Houthi rebels. A terrible position for so many

people, what has brought this about, the fighting? Yemen was already the

poorest country in the Arab world for the civil war but the situation

has deteriorated worse than anyone could have imagined. The statistics

are appalling, 90 million people, more than two thirds of the

population in need of either food aid or some kind of protection. 3.3

million people are at risk of acute or diagnosed as having acute

malnourishment. Two thirds of those are children. What has caused this

primarily is the ongoing fighting. It is complicated, there are not

just in the two sides, we have al-Qaeda but the primary battle is

between the rebels who took over the government and ousted the legitimate

government to eat half years ago and the forces loyal to that legitimate

government backed by Saudi led air strikes. Those air strikes have

caused a lot of damage to the infrastructure and you also have the

ports that are partly blockaded to stop Iranian weapons communion to

reach the Houthi rabble. And then the Houthi rabble sporting some of

the food meant to go to the people. So a perfect storm of bad things

that have conspired to make Yemen in a desperate state. The UK has a

stake in this because it supplies arms and munitions to the Saudi air

force which has been accused of war crimes where some of the bombs have

gone astray and hit civilians. Thank you.

A leading Russian opposition leader - who has mounted anti-corruption

campaigns against senior officials close to the Kremlin - has been

Alexei Navalny had announced he would challenge Vladimir Putin

for the presidency next year - but his conviction now

Mr Navalny says the case is politically motivated.

A prominent commander of Russian-backed separatist rebels

has been killed in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

Mikhail Tolstykh also known as 'Givi' was blown up in his office.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic

described his killing as a terrorist act.

Around 15,000 people have been evacuated as a fire

destroyed a shanty town in the Philippine capital, Manila.

Around 1000 homes in the Parola Compound were burnt down

but no-one was reported to have been killed.

The fire was put out this morning after raging for most of the night.

It is not clear what started the blaze.

Tornadoes have wreaked havoc across the American

state of Louisiana - injuring dozens of people.

A state of emergency was declared after six twisters hit around

Louisiana's governor said he'd never see devastation like it.

Running for cover, quickly finding shelter where

When we looked up in the air we could see debris in the distance

and before we knew it it was just bearing down on us, then we just

We thought we were not going to make it.

Elsewhere roofs ripped off and just watch the vehicle in the distance.

This particular area, this path right here,

It's thought at least six tornados tore through Louisiana yesterday

leaving businesses flattened, livelihoods destroyed and homes now

Although some made a lucky escape, this man had no time to get out.

At least 20 people have been injured and with power lines torn down

Rescue teams are continuing their search for people trapped

as the full extent of the damage is becoming clear.

Victim support groups have told the BBC people who say they have been

raped are afraid to report the crime because of fears of the way they

will be treated in court. Today a bill was presented to MPs in

parliament are going more should be done to protect possible rape

victims as they give evidence. These are the places where justice

is served. But today claims that in some cases it is where rape victims

feel violated all over again. It was awful, to be degraded in such a way,

to be so totally humiliated. This rape trial ended with a conviction

at the end of 2015 but Ivy says the grilling she received felt as bad as

the physical assault. The specific questions they asked where, how many

previous sexual partners have I had. They accused me of being someone who

was promiscuous. It is appalling. I was told that line of questioning

was not allowed, it was consigned to the dark ages, it did not happen.

But it happens. The charity voice for victims tells me this is

happening too often. We are hearing from victims being questioned about

the number of sexual partners they have had in the past. Or the colour

of the dress that they were wearing at the time of the attack. What it

is doing is shaming and blaming. Protection for victims already

exists. Under section 41 of the youth Justice and criminal evidence

act. References to sexual history should be heavily restricted and

only rarely allowed but new research carried out in courts in Newcastle

suggest this might be happening in around one third of all cases. I

fear we're going back to the bad old days of the 1980s and 1970s when

victims effectively wear themselves put in the dock and interrogated. So

today the people present a Private members bill to parliament to offer

better protection for victims. If you had known then how you were

going to be treated, would you have proceeded? Definitely not, it was a

total character annihilation. Campaigners say we need to redress

the balance back in favour of the victim but others say defendants are

equally entitled to a fair trial. The balance cannot shift too far.

A murmuration - it's known as one of the most stunning

free shows on Earth - and right now Cumbria is one

of the best places to see the tens of thousands of starlings

It's an aerial ballet with a cast of thousands,

a mass of starlings flying in mesmerising harmony.

The dictionary tells us this is called a murmuration.

It also tells us the word's been in use for hundreds of years,

Nobody really knows the reason why it's called a murmuration.

It's an interesting word, because they don't really murmur.

Short answer - no one knows why it's called that.

Why do they form these patterns that move together in harmony?

There is some suggestion that they come together at dusk

in a big group because it protects them from predation from the likes

of buzzards or kestrels, but why they do this amazing aerial

ballet before they settle down for the night, no one knows.

Well, obviously, it's a stunning landscape -

why wouldn't anyone want to spend the night here?

And so, an audience gathers at Sunbiggin Tarn in Cumbria for one

This, one of several murmuration viewings hosted by the Friends

of the Lake District, who own this stunning

stretch of land midway between Kendal and Penrith.

I'm a reporter for my school magazine.

Yeah, I'm going to write it up on a computer.

Are you going to be taking some pictures and film as well?

Well, yes, hopefully if my mum's remembered her phone.

The thing is, I have to try and capture it on my camera over

there and if I miss anything, can I borrow your shots?

And so, as dusk gathers, so, too, do the stars of the show.

Absolutely beautiful, the noise and the commotion.

They are just stunning, the sky turns black and it is just amazing.

Well, I have seen them before in other places,

but nothing like as big a show as here.

Well, someone estimated there were around 60,000

I'm not sure how you would count them.

Then, as darkness falls, so, too, do the starlings,

and it's curtain down on another perfect performance.

Dave Guest, BBC News, at Sunbiggin Tarn in Cumbria.

Not as spectacular as both stunning starlings. Back to the UK and winter

has come. This is just a couple of hours ago and we have snow showers

falling across the Grampians of Scotland. Further west some sunshine

and in Cumbria West is best today. So just a couple of Weather Watchers

showing those beautifully sunny pictures. And where the sun is

shining it is around 11 degrees for the contrast that with just three

degrees at the moment on the east coast. That is because the cold air

has arrived, this weather front giving wintry outbreaks. Behind that

is high pressure and an easterly wind. Sub for the rest of the week

the cold air is with us. We will find that sleeping West right the

way across into Northern Ireland. At the moment we have some sunshine,

further east it is grey. Damp as well in a few places with just some

drizzly showers. A little bit of sleet over the Pennines and the

Grampians. Some goods spells of sunshine in Northern Ireland and the

West of Scotland in contrast. Through this evening and overnight

temperatures fall away once again where we have those clear skies. In

the east where the wintry showers continue some ice could be an issue

but even further west we could have some freezing fog. So cold to start

tomorrow morning with some freezing fog around and ice patches. Again a

lot of dry weather tomorrow but again in the East you can see wintry

showers perhaps further south tomorrow. Again mostly over the

hills but there could be some sleet or snow and cold again tomorrow.

Then the high pressure keeps all the weather fronts at bay through

Friday. That keen easterly wind is with us. So the chance of some

wintry weather. Even at lower levels potentially. And on Friday with the

wind chill feeling significantly colder. And even into the weekend

the risk is there, temperatures are still low and it is not warming up

in the near future at least. But hopefully at least some brightness

at times. That's all from the BBC News at One

- so it's goodbye from me -