Lady Amos’s investigation finds women let down and slow progress on reforms, with ‘devastating consequences’

Victims of NHS maternity failings received “unacceptable care”, leading to “tragic consequences”, the head of an investigation into maternity care in England has said.

Changes within services have been too slow despite being necessary and urgent, according to a report by Valerie Amos, who is leading the national maternity and neonatal investigation (NMNI).

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Lady Amos’s investigation finds women let down and slow progress on reforms, with ‘devastating consequences’

Victims of NHS maternity failings received “unacceptable care”, leading to “tragic consequences”, the head of an investigation into maternity care in England has said.

Changes within services have been too slow despite being necessary and urgent, according to a report by Valerie Amos, who is leading the national maternity and neonatal investigation (NMNI).

Continue reading...

Lady Amos’s investigation finds women let down and slow progress on reforms, with ‘devastating consequences’

Victims of NHS maternity failings received “unacceptable care”, leading to “tragic consequences”, the head of an investigation into maternity care in England has said.

Changes within services have been too slow despite being necessary and urgent, according to a report by Valerie Amos, who is leading the national maternity and neonatal investigation (NMNI).

Continue reading...

Ahead of James Cameron’s latest Avatar sequel hitting the big screen, we look at how studios aim for ‘theatricality’ to get streaming film fans from sofa to cinema

If anyone still knows how to fill a movie theatre, it’s James Cameron. Having broken the all-time worldwide box office record in 1997 with Titanic and again 12 years later with Avatar, his work is the acme of big-screen spectacle.

His latest offering, Avatar: Fire and Ash, arrives in radically different circumstances. With several years now between us and the pandemic, it is clear that theatrical box office is likely not coming back to what it was: US total box office for 2025 currently stands at $7.6bn (down from $11.3bn in 2019); the worldwide haul is expected to be around $34.1bn, a 13% drop from pre-Covid times. All the more onus on Cameron’s hypertrophic Smurfs to bring in the box office cavalry at year’s end. And hopefully supply some further indications about the magic elixir needed to break the Netflix’n’chill stranglehold and get boots back in cinemas.

Continue reading...

Ahead of James Cameron’s latest Avatar sequel hitting the big screen, we look at how studios aim for ‘theatricality’ to get streaming film fans from sofa to cinema

If anyone still knows how to fill a movie theatre, it’s James Cameron. Having broken the all-time worldwide box office record in 1997 with Titanic and again 12 years later with Avatar, his work is the acme of big-screen spectacle.

His latest offering, Avatar: Fire and Ash, arrives in radically different circumstances. With several years now between us and the pandemic, it is clear that theatrical box office is likely not coming back to what it was: US total box office for 2025 currently stands at $7.6bn (down from $11.3bn in 2019); the worldwide haul is expected to be around $34.1bn, a 13% drop from pre-Covid times. All the more onus on Cameron’s hypertrophic Smurfs to bring in the box office cavalry at year’s end. And hopefully supply some further indications about the magic elixir needed to break the Netflix’n’chill stranglehold and get boots back in cinemas.

Continue reading...

Ahead of James Cameron’s latest Avatar sequel hitting the big screen, we look at how studios aim for ‘theatricality’ to get streaming film fans from sofa to cinema

If anyone still knows how to fill a movie theatre, it’s James Cameron. Having broken the all-time worldwide box office record in 1997 with Titanic and again 12 years later with Avatar, his work is the acme of big-screen spectacle.

His latest offering, Avatar: Fire and Ash, arrives in radically different circumstances. With several years now between us and the pandemic, it is clear that theatrical box office is likely not coming back to what it was: US total box office for 2025 currently stands at $7.6bn (down from $11.3bn in 2019); the worldwide haul is expected to be around $34.1bn, a 13% drop from pre-Covid times. All the more onus on Cameron’s hypertrophic Smurfs to bring in the box office cavalry at year’s end. And hopefully supply some further indications about the magic elixir needed to break the Netflix’n’chill stranglehold and get boots back in cinemas.

Continue reading...

A reader says they overpaid their national insurance, but seem to be lending the government money with no interest

I have two roles within the NHS, which has resulted in overpayments of national insurance each year.

Since Covid, the refund system has slowly ground to a halt. I was told in October that I am owed £2,200 and that it could take 33 weeks to receive the payment.

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Over 120 years ago, a monumental work recording more than 500 species of tree in Britain and Ireland was published. A new version focuses on the pioneering images it contained

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You don’t have to be a child to enjoy Seiffen, the magical ‘home of Christmas’ where they’ve been making traditional wooden toys for hundreds of years

I feel terrible … I’ve left the children at home and Seiffen, nicknamed Spielzeugdorf (The Toy Village), is literally a Christmas wonderland. Every street is alive with sparkling fairy lights and soft candlelight. There are thousands of tiny wooden figurines, train sets and toy animals displayed in shop windows, wooden pyramids taller than doorframes and colourful nutcracker characters. Forget elves in the north pole, this is the real Santa’s workshop. For hundreds of years, here in the village of Seiffen, wood turners and carvers have created classic wooden Christmas toys and sold them around the world.

Near the border of the Czech Republic, Seiffen may be well known in the German-speaking world as the “home of Christmas”, but so far it has been largely missed by English-speaking seasonal tourists. Tucked away in the Ore Mountains, about an hour and a half south of Dresden, it is not the easiest place to get to by public transport – the nearest train station is in Olbernhau, nearly 7 miles (11km) away. Buses are available, but we opt for a hire car and make our way into the hills, arriving the day after the first snowfall of the year. The roads are cleared quickly, but snow clings to the branches of the spruce trees. We half expect to see the Gruffalo’s child, but only spot a rust-coloured fox making its way through a fresh field of snow.

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