09/01/2017 Midlands Today

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has highlighted

the Worcestershire Royal as the most troubled hospital in England.

His comments come after the deaths of two patients who were waiting

in corridors in A and another who was found on a ward.

Earlier in the day, he met the Redditch MP Karen Lumley

and gave her assurances about extra support for the county's hospitals.

So, Ben, today's statement was pretty bleak for Worcestershire?

The comments today have been pretty damning.

The Health Secretary's said the Worcestershire Royal

is the hospital he's most worried about anywhere in the country.

It's in special measures, without a current chief executive

and then there were these three deaths this week.

This afternoon, Jeremy Hunt told the House of Commons

that the problem of patients waiting on trollies was mainly down to just

The most recent statistics show that nearly three quarters of trolley

In Worcestershire in particular, there have been a number

of unacceptably long trolley waits, and in the media, two reported

We're also aware of ongoing problems in north Midlands,

with extremely high numbers of 12-hour trolley waits.

Responding to Mr Hunt, the Shadow Health Secretary,

Jonathan Ashworth, asked if the Government would take action

One of the most upsetting reports to come out of hospitals last week

was the death of two patients at Worcestershire Royal who had been

Can I ask the Secretary of State if he will commit to personally lead

Karen Lumley met with Jeremy Hunt today. What was her discussion

about? Problems at the Worcestershire Royal

haven't been helped by the transfer of a number of services

from the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, but the town's MP,

Karen Lumley, said she was given a number of assurances

from the Health Secretary. He gave us assurances

that they are putting They are also opening another ward

now to make sure that we alleviate But, as I said to you just earlier,

that is in the short-term and is what is needed,

but in the longer term, we need to make sure that this

does not happen again. A spokesperson from

the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust told me they're currently

holding internal reviews into all three deaths

and until they're completed They say they're working hard

at reducing the time people are waiting on trolleys,

but accept that patients are waiting longer than

they would like and apologised A group of Morris dancers

were forced to abandon a performance in the centre of Birmingham this

weekend after being Several of the troop

from Worcestershire had blackened their faces in line

with some Morris dancing traditions. But a number of onlookers took

exception and disrupted the dance. the practice dates back centuries

and is not linked to race. It was supposed to be

family-friendly fun, a traditional Morris dance

to entertain shoppers and celebrate But at the Birmingham Bullring,

a young, dark-skinned man Some of them had

blackened their faces. He angrily and repeatedly

called them racist. According to one account,

hats were not from heads, Do not think you will not

hurt someone's feelings! The dancers received

such abuse, they decided I have spoken to the treasurer of

the group, they are still deciding I'm told one of the members

was so upset by the experience that he considered

reporting it to the police. At the Bullring today,

it was not hard to find others Will it equate incorrect and they

should not have done it. I don't know the gave them license to feel

they can do that in a cosmopolitan city like Birmingham. It is our

tradition. People bothered to look into why they did it with their

faces, it has nothing to do with race, with a multicultural society,

we don't do that kind of thing you. Shropshire-based Mike Rust has been

a Morris dancer for nearly 30 years. He says the practice of backing up

data on the 17th century, when they dance was banned,

and the dancers sought It is one of our ancient tradition

that we enjoy doing. It comes from the rural parts of the Midlands.

Herefordshire, Shropshire and Abbot of Worcester.

Multicultural Birmingham seems to be in a little dome of itself,

and what happens there is separate what happens out here.

The police say they are aware of the incident and are reviewing

information received, but have not started

Well, you've been sending in your reaction to this story this evening.

On e-mail, Mike in Telford says this is not racist,

but has been part of a very old tradition.

Mrs Rowlands from Bewdley says, I'm annoyed at the ignorance

of those people who display a lack of knowledge of our English heritage

and think they can disrupt and change our culture.

But on Twitter, Pheobe says, blacking up is literally never OK,

And on Facebook, Suzanne Morris says, this is not racist,

Although a very old tradition, I think the "black face"

Thank you very much for getting in touch.

Two people died in a burning car after a crash that shut part

of the M6 in Warwickshire in the early hours of this morning.

Their vehicle hit a barrier on the motorway near Corley services.

A man and a woman were confirmed dead at the scene.

The road was closed for several hours, causing lengthy hold-ups

on many surrounding roads during the morning rush hour.

A large boulder which fell 40 feet down a cliff onto a railway line

in Gloucestershire is continuing to cause disruption to services.

Engineers have spent the day breaking it up into smaller pieces,

but Network Rail say the line may not reopen before the morning.

A boulder - six feet by four - which came tumbling down a steep

It was fortunate that a train on the other line spotted it first

Engineers have been on the track, near Kemble, all day.

They have been breaking the lump up bit by bit.

It had clearly broken through metal netting and cables drilled

into the tight cutting to minimise the impact of landslides.

We have had some minor falls from time to time,

which is why the netting is there, to help the cutting

Well, it is not designed to cope with anything of the size we saw

Trains from Gloucester to Swindon have been able to pass

through here at five miles per hour, but commuters wanting to get

from Swindon to Gloucester have tried to use the bus service.

That may continue while Network Rail's investigations

We need to check that all the signalling equipment

and the actual track itself is safe to run trains over.

It is pretty robust but it has had a serious knock today.

We're also taking some investigations into what is still up

there the cutting wall, to see there's anything else

that is likely to condone what need to do about that.

The tight, rocky ravines here are a known problem

It is close to the Sapperton Tunnel, which has undergone major

repairs in recent years because of instability

It could be that CCTV remote movement sensors could be

installed here in future, which would raise the alarm

If you live in Warwickshire, then you may have spotted some

They were apparently paid-for by a woman called "Linda" seeking

revenge against her cheating partner "Graham".

Well, mystery continues to surround the identity of the couple,

with some claiming it could be a publicity stunt.

I don't think Linda meant it to be shared in America be on the BBC,

but it is out there now and it is there for everyone to see.

It's not a love story, it is an anti-love story,

Like, who is she and why has she done this?

On to sport, and the draw's been made for the fourth

round of the FA Cup this evening, with both of our remaining

Wolves will play either Plymouth or Liverpool,

while Birmingham City will travel to Oxford United -

if they can beat Newcastle in the third round replay.

Good evening. Rumour has it that there could be some snow later this

week and indeed there could be across some parts of the country.

The north, west and east but less so here in the Midlands. This is how it

looked across our region this morning. A lot of rain, dull and

dreary, and this is how it ended up. This is how will shape up later this

week after the mild and cloudy conditions we have cold, windy

conditions from mid week onwards. At the moment, it is a case of wintry

showers, nothing too substantial. In contrast, tonight is quite mild.

Temperatures above freezing. We have a bit of rain to get through, some

spits and sports in places. We start tomorrow on a cloudy zero but with a

bit of brightness. Again, flickers of rain across the North and

travelling southwards as well. Going into tomorrow night, temperatures

drop slightly. Laws of around 5-7 C. A lot of cloud and much drier

conditions with the odd spot of rain here and there. This. To pep up as

we head into Wednesday's cell. Wednesday is largely dry. Cloudy

start to the day but temperatures will be on the mild side through

much the date, up to 10 Celsius. The cold north-westerly will bring

cleaner air and clearly cloud. It will bring as much lower

temperatures by Thursday. Looking further ahead, be strong

north-westerly wind introduces Arctic air and bring some of the

showers on Thursday. Wintry on high-risk game but temperatures

struggling to 34 Celsius. precipitation we get will be of a

wintry nation and Thursday is one we have to watch out for. The weekend

outlook, it stays chilly with a northerly wind and possibly frosty

nights. The national weather forecast now.

Wet and windy weather across the western side of Scotland.

Blood-pressure is in charge of the weather, lots of isobars and it

remains windy overnight across northern and western parts of

Scotland. It will blow a gale here. That is the north-west quadrant of

the UK, that is where we expect most of the overnight rain. Within

north-westerly breeze it is chilly and by the end of the night it is

three or 4 degrees in major towns and cities, rural spots lower than

that, and a risk of icy patches in some places. Across the eastern side

of Scotland not much rain, more on the west, still breezy but not as

windy