09/02/2017 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at Ten - yet more pressure for the NHS in England,

with the worst-ever waiting times in accident and emergency.

The latest figures show a record number of patients spent more

than four hours in A in December, and leaked figures suggest January's

It's really not a great patient experience for many of our patients

That's what the staff tell me as well.

But NHS managers say staff are working flat out

to provide a good service, and the vast majority of patients

It's not acceptable and it's not what we want.

We have planned more this winter than ever before.

That planning has worked in most places.

But some places are under intense pressure.

We'll be examining the latest figures -

and we'll be taking a look at the system in Germany,

where spending on health is the highest in the European Union.

The scheme to bring child refugees to Britain from Europe

The Archbishop of Canterbury says he's saddened and shocked.

A vigorous welcome in the Oval Office for new US

Attorney General Jeff Sessions - the most controversial

Chaotic scenes in the South African Parliament,

as President Zuma is accused of promoting rampant corruption.

And we talk to the British sprinter who competed in Rio -

who's now hoping to rebuild his running career after

And coming up in Sportsday on BBC News: Find out if the Leeds Rhinos

could hold onto the lead, and beat St Helens in

the first match of the new Superleague season.

Record numbers of patients spent more than four hours in accident

and emergency units in England in January, according

During a difficult winter for the NHS, January seems to be

the worst performing month in the past 13 years.

The figures also suggest record numbers of people waited longer

than 12 hours for a hospital bed, once they'd been seen.

The doctors' union, the BMA, has accused the government

of failing to grasp the seriousness of the situation, as our health

Scenes like this on BBC News this week have highlighted the immense

Here at Royal Blackburn Hospital, rated as good by inspectors,

some patients waited up to 13 hours in A

Official figures have confirmed that it was the worst

December for waits since modern records began.

Today at Hillingdon Hospital in west London, things were a bit calmer,

but managers confirm that they've been stretched to the limits.

It's been fairly relentless in terms of November

I'm confident that the safety of our patients is being maintained

at a high quality, but it's really not a great patient experience.

In December in England, 86.2% of patients were treated

or assessed in A within four hours, the lowest since

That was below Scotland, where 92.6% of patients

In Wales, the figure was 81%, and the percentage

in Northern Ireland was just under 70 - all below the 95% benchmark.

In England, the number of patients stuck on trolleys or chairs for more

than four hours before a bed could be found was nearly 61,800 -

It has been a steep climb this year, but the thing that has changed

the most has been not the 2% or 3% increase in demand,

but the 40% increase in the delays in moving patients,

helping them get back to their homes and back into the community.

With the A target being so badly missed, there's now a debate

about whether it should be dropped or amended.

There's a certain art in setting the bar at the right level.

The fact is that the NHS has been meeting, for example,

It's only recently that it started to go wrong.

So we need to examine the reasons why it's

Many hospitals like this one are running at 95% of capacity.

That means they're nearly full, so with more emergency cases coming

in and difficulties discharging some patients back into the community,

some of those needing surgery are having to wait longer.

Even cancer patients like Martin are affected by delays.

Until this year, that's been very rare, as hospitals prioritise cancer

treatment even during the busiest weeks of winter.

His operation was cancelled minutes before it was due to take place.

He's now had the surgery, but he says it was a

Very anxious not to go through all that again,

Your mind and that is going overtime.

December's A performance figures in England were poor,

but NHS documents leaked to the BBC suggest that they were

It's clear that hospital staff are working at full stretch.

Winter is far from over, and the intense pressure seems

This week has brought many calls from staff and patients for more

But some experts insist that the current problems

are not being caused solely by financial factors.

Branwen Jeffreys has been to Germany, where spending

on health is the highest in the European Union,

They never worry about a lack of beds.

Germany has almost three times as many as the UK.

One day after the operation, I can walk.

For George, that means almost no waiting.

In England, patients wait several months.

For George, it's been just a few weeks since the decision was made.

I have to decide when I want to take the operation.

Normally, it takes three or four weeks to get

All of this paid, for by health insurance, 14% of George's salary,

Germany's health system is convenient, but expensive.

And that worries doctors like Martin Wetzel.

So in order to save money in the long term, they're

putting more effort now, and more time with patients, into convincing

It's a lot of time to convince him to try another way, that it would be

better to lose ten kilograms of weight to solve

the problem with his diabetes instead of taking pills.

Do you have the time now under this new system?

Doctors here in the Black Forest have been given a financial

incentive to make patients healthier overall by joining up care.

Many parts of the NHS are trying to do the same.

Here, there are cheaper gym sessions,

It's subsidised by health insurance, and it's saving money.

As a result, they're spending 6% less on looking after patients.

So I asked the health manager running it all,

why isn't the rest of Germany worried about cost?

The economy runs so well in Germany, so their social health institutions

and the insurance funds have no problems.

But everybody knows it is just a question of time.

It may result in five years or it may result in eight or ten years,

The rolling countryside of Thuringia, hundreds of miles

villages where there are more old faces than young.

There is more money in the German system, but that doesn't mean

Here in what they call Germany's green heart,

they have a terrible shortage of GPs.

And it's because of that that they are finally beginning

Many doctors still work alone in Germany, but here they are having

to use nurses more to help GPs provide home visits

They don't have relatives, so doctors have to make home visits.

There's often not enough time in the day to do that.

That's why we enabled a few years ago nurses to make home visits.

A visit from the nurse keeps these older patients well.

Germany's population is one of the fastest ageing in the world.

They have the money now to make the changes needed in the future.

Branwen Jeffreys, BBC News, Thuringia.

And tomorrow on BBC News, the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt

will be responding to the issues raised by our coverage this week

There'll be more details online at bbc.co.uk/health.

Ministers have been forced to defend their decision to abandon

a scheme to bring vulnerable refugee children to Britain from Europe.

The Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the project, devised

by the Labour peer Lord Dubs, risked encouraging people

traffickers, which is why it would close next month -

Campaigners had hoped to bring in 3000.

Labour said the decision was shameful, and the Archbishop

of Canterbury said he was saddened and shocked.

Our home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford has the story.

Stranded at a hostel in Athens, this 17-year-old Afghan refugee

He wants to come to Britain and was being helped

But the government scheme to assist unaccompanied child refugees

in Europe with no family in the UK, which has taken 200 so far,

If I am stuck here, it's really hard to me to achieve my aims,

to achieve my goals, because here there is no

perfect school or perfect college for the refugees.

NEWSREEL: 200 girls and boys wave a greeting to England.

It was the Kindertransport that saved thousands of Jewish children

from the Nazis that inspired those who persuaded the government last

year to take in more of today's child refugees crossing Europe.

It's a comparison ministers think is unfair.

Well, I'm a refugee and I came to England at the age of six.

Among those saved in the '30s was Lord Dubs, who led the push

This afternoon he told me the government had

When there is something that calls on humanitarian action,

and when as I believe the majority of British people support that

humanitarian action, I think the government are behaving

very shamefully by saying, no, we don't want any more of this.

I think it's disappointing and shabby, and I don't think

Those who want to help more child refugees,

including the Archbishop of Canterbury, said today

that the government was going back on commitments it made last year.

But ministers say to that that there's no point in inviting

thousands of children here if the local councils,

who will have to look after them, can't cope.

These are children who need looking after over a period.

When we accept them here, it is not job done.

It is making sure that we work with local authorities,

that we have the right safeguarding in place.

Called to the Commons to defend her decision,

the Home Secretary even found opposition from a few

But councils warned that caring for refugee children is expensive.

It costs on average ?50,000 to support a child in the UK care

system, and every unaccompanied refugee child is entitled to exactly

the same care and support as a child from the UK.

We need to make sure that where those costs are rising

There are tens of thousands of refugee children still in limbo

in Europe, but ministers prefer schemes that take children

who are even more vulnerable, from camps near to Syria.

And the Home Office said that in all, 8000 children

were given refuge of some sort in the UK last year.

Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court has described

the President's attacks on the judiciary as "demoralising"

The comments by Neil Gorsuch were made in a private conversation

with a Democratic senator, but later confirmed

During the day, one of the President's most

controversial cabinet nominees, Jeff Sessions, was sworn

Our North America editor Jon Sopel has the latest.

I, Jeff Sessions, do solemnly swear...

It hasn't been neat, it hasn't been easy,

but Senator Jeff Sessions, a hugely controversial choice

over an allegedly racist past, has finally won approval to be

And it's clear that he and the president are on the same page.

We have an increased threat, since I was United States

Mr President, you have spoken firmly on that.

You have led this nation, to say we're going to respond

effectively to the threat of terrorism, and you can count

on your Department of Justice to do so in an effective way.

But Donald Trump's plan to ban migrants from seven mainly Muslim

countries isn't going to be decided by the Justice Department.

It is going to end up here, at the Supreme Court.

And his recent denunciation of federal judges involved in that

Astonishingly, even his pick for the Supreme Court

has called the move "disheartening and demoralising."

Judge Gorsuch, who has been touring Capitol Hill offices to win

support for his nomination, wouldn't express those

He did reveal this in a series of private meetings.

You misrepresented his comments totally.

His comments were misrepresented, and what you should

do is ask Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record.

It didn't exist, after years of saying it did, so ask

Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record.

He misrepresented that, just like he misrepresented Judge Gorsuch.

There is no question that Judge Gorsuch said

that these attacks on

the judiciary are disheartening and demoralising.

There were White House staff in the room, and his own spokesman

The judiciary and executive are two separate branches of government

that are meant to keep their distance.

Judge Gorsuch, when he was unveiled at the

White House last week, seemed determined to do that quite

literally, though it seems to be something to president is struggling

President Trump is continuing to defend his travel ban

against seven mainly Muslim countries, as the courts

Mr Trump is claiming that American public opinion

He made immigration one of his main campaign themes.

One of the states where Mr Trump gained particular

Our correspondent Aleem Maqbool has been there, to find out what people

make of the argument over travel and immigration.

Beautiful Alpine Montana is the size of Germany.

It's got a population of just 1 million, but fewer than 20 refugee

families have been resettled in the entire state

And yet this is where some of the strongest views

I believe that what we have seen with our president

This is a man who couldn't be happier.

Hollis is heavily involved in local politics and he's a preacher.

His Christian compassion, though, does not extend to those he feels

There you go, kids, that will keep you warm.

If they come among us and then try to enact something,

If groups of radical Islamic people begin to show up who will eventually

attempt to harm our women, those militant people need

to understand that the women of Montana are armed.

Hollis says those who are protesting against Donald Trump's immigration

policies do not represent the real America.

This is a local rally in support of the refugees.

Not a bad turnout for a weekday lunchtime in the snow, perhaps.

But these are certainly not the loudest voices on this issue

The state has one of the most high-profile anti-immigrant

campaigns and before the election, had one of the biggest anti-refugee

The anger for many is directed mainly at Muslims, something local

politicians are tapping into - some would say even fuelling.

After days of debate, the State Senate has just passed

a bill to say Sharia law can't be applied in Montana.

This woman and her family arrived here just a couple of months ago.

They fled Eritrea with no choice about where the UN sent them.

After more than four years of vetting, they landed in Montana -

nervous, shy about talking on camera, adjusting to a different

world, and to this storm of anti-immigrant sentiment.

But as far as many here and across America are concerned,

there is simply no room for new immigrants, to whom the door

There were chaotic scenes in the South African Parliament,

as President Jacob Zuma tried to deliver his annual state

Opposition MPs called the president a "scoundrel"

and "rotten to the core" because of corruption allegations.

The president ordered the deployment of troops around

the parliament building to deal with thousands of protestors.

Mr Zuma and his government have faced allegations

of corruption for over a decade, as our Africa correspondent

The gloom here in Port Elizabeth can feel relentless.

It's a rough city, worn down by corruption and neglect,

and a revealing place to judge South Africa's future.

This place has become known as Toilet Valley.

The neighbourhood was supposed to house thousands of poor families.

Somehow, the toilets got built, but no homes.

They tell us we're going to get houses in three months' time.

Three years that you've had this beautiful toilet

No wonder people are losing patience.

As the poor struggle here,

the powerful are looting with impunity.

It's negligence from those who have been entrusted to deal

Well, it boils down to corruption. You can't run away from it.

It's the same story with these buses, which have sat unused

in a depot since they were brought in for the 2010 World Cup.

The corruption here is quite breathtaking.

This one bus scandal alone has cost the city more than ?100 million,

and that's just a fraction of what has been

To many in South Africa, the blame goes all the way

to the top with the example set by President Jacob Zuma,

arriving this evening to address parliament in Cape Town.

Tighter security is becoming something of a habit here.

Inside, opposition MPs interrupted the President's speech...

An incorrigible man, rotten to the core.

..Reminding him that he'd broken his oath

of office in relation to a corruption scandal.

Eventually, political theatre turned into something more violent,

security guards called in to eject the protesting MPs.

get his chance to celebrate his government's achievements.

We are building a South Africa that must be free from poverty,

But the political mood here is sour, and likely to get worse.

But as gloomy as things may seem here, there's change in the air.

Here in Port Elizabeth and in other key cities,

the opposition has been winning power in local elections,

nudging South African democracy in the right direction.

The result, a frenzy of initiatives in Port Elizabeth,

the former opposition now keen to show it can fix the city and,

who knows, maybe win power nationwide in 2019.

The result, a frenzy of initiatives in Port Elizabeth,

the former opposition now keen to show it can fix the city and,

who knows, maybe win power nationwide in 2019.

is this the way out of trouble for South Africa?

This is the only way out of trouble for South Africa.

That is why it is so critical for us to have achieved

what we did in the last local government elections.

We are steadfast that by 2019, we will put a coalition government

together that will govern South Africa

where we bring all people together.

That's a message that has begun to gain momentum.

If they keep on being competent and they don't lose motivation

as time goes, then South Africa is set to boom.

Perhaps, but in Toilet Valley, they're still waiting for homes.

South Africa's economy remains stagnant, and the challenges

Andrew Harding, BBC News, in Port Elizabeth.

A brief look at some of the day's other news stories.

Four men who were part of a gang that sexually exploited teenage

girls in Rochdale are facing deportation to Pakistan.

The men - British nationals of Pakistani origin -

were jailed for between six and 22 years.

Immigration judges have rejected appeals against plans to strip them

The City of Edinburgh Council says it'll examine all

the recommendations of a report which found poor quality control

was to blame for a wall collapsing at a primary school a year ago.

The incident led to the temporary closure of 17 other schools

which were built as part of the same private finance agreement.

New data from the Department for Transport shows record levels

There were over 320 billion vehicle miles travelled last year.

This is the most ever recorded and is 2% more

than the pre-recession peak, in the year ending September 2007.

Four of Labour's newest MPs have been promoted

The mini-reshuffle was necessary after a number of the Shadow Cabinet

defied the leader's order to support the Government's Brexit Bill.

There are now 14 women in Mr Corbyn's 29-member Shadow Cabinet.

In Egypt, the only centre for treating victims of torture has

been closed without warning by the authorities.

The security forces of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

are accused of regularly torturing detainees as they try to crush

It's an allegation his government denies.

From Cairo, our correspondent Orla Guerin reports.

Here in the shadows, in a rundown apartment block,

But today, therapists and doctors sat idly outside

after police shut down the El Nadeem Centre -

the only refuge in Egypt for victims of torture.

One of the co-founders told us their services are crucial

When it comes to police stations and prisons,

the map of torture in the country is the map of the country.

There isn't a hamlet, a village, town, city,

That's denied by the authorities, who speak only of isolated cases,

but the centre has treated thousands since 1993.

Now for the first time ever, there's no entry.

Well, other doors here may soon be closed.

More human rights organisations are being targeted -

they've been accused of illegally receiving foreign funding

Campaigners say the aim is very clear - to silence anyone who dares

But some torture victims continue to speak out,

Recently, he told us what happened after his arrest in 2014.

TRANSLATION: I was abused at the checkpoint where I was arrested.

Then they transferred me to the police station.

I was electrocuted on my private parts.

They kicked me with their military boots and hit me with sticks.

Having spent more than two years in jail, yesterday

he was detained again, snatched off the street along

He says he was blindfolded and interrogated for hours.

Mahmoud used to turn to the El Nadeem Centre for help.

Now he, and many others, have nowhere to go.

There is more pressure on the Football Association tonight, this

time from MPs. They have passed a motion of no-confidence in its

leadership and have called on Parliament to step in and reform the

organisation. While the vote was largely symbolic, ministers have

warned that the FA needs to modernise or it might lose millions

of pounds public funding. Two of Britain's best sprinters -

James Ellington and Nigel Levine - were involved in a road accident

last month, and their injuries were described

as "career threatening." They're now back in the UK

receiving treatment, and one of them, James Ellington,

has been discussing what happened with our correspondent

David Ornstein. James Ellington is one

of Britain's finest sprinters, But today, he's

learning to walk again. Three weeks ago, Ellington

was involved in a head-on collision as a passenger on a motorbike

during a training camp in Tenerife. I was on the floor and there

was blood everywhere, and I looked at my leg and my leg

was in pieces I lost six pints of blood,

so I was kind of laying there, thinking to myself "What the hell

is going on?" This was the x-ray

of his right tibia. Ellington's surgeon

described the injuries He suffered an open fracture

of his right leg, a broken left ankle and damage to his pelvis

and an eye socket. The crash was so horrific that

I don't think most people would have survived,

to be honest. So when I was laying

in the hospital bed in Tenerife and I saw my team-mates coming

to visit me, they looked pretty emotional but I was saying

to them "It's cool", because I knew I was lucky

to be alive. 2016 was Ellington's

best year to date. He competed against the likes

of Usain Bolt at the Rio Olympics. Four years earlier,

he auctioned himself on eBay, just to fund his journey

to the London Games. What is your outlook

for your future as a sprinter? Being an athlete and a determined

person, I think this is going to be Imagine that, being on the track

after what you've been through. That belief is familiar

to Ellington, but success now Tonight, we will be speaking to

Britain passed by top cop, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. He has been the

Metropolitan Police Commissioner for over five years, but is about to

step down so that he can give us an honest view of how well the police

are doing. Join me now on BBC Two. And in the next few hours, we are

expecting the federal appeals court in California to release the

judgment on the travel ban ordered by President Trump and to declare

whether that is legal or not. Full coverage for you online and on the

BBC News Channel.