Despite staff shortages newly qualified medical professionals in all disciplines are finding it difficult to get jobs due to recruitment freezes. This wasteful situation has a direct impact on patient care in the NHS.

A group of healthcare workers in Gloucestershire are taking on their trust which refuses to pay them at the right grade. Strike action has been going on since April.

Arriva bus workers in south east England are being balloted on strike action over a below-inflation pay offer. Stikes could begin in September, resulting in major disruption to bus services in the areas affected.

Most of the Welsh government’s spending comes from the UK Treasury. The grant for the next three years looks inadequate, which will set the fiscal context for next year’s Senedd election.

One aspect of the housing crisis is the bad state of rented homes and the problem is growing, judging by a recent report. These conditions are a threat to health, especially children.

The government is returning passenger operating companies to public ownership. But large parts of the system remain in private hands. Rail union RMT says there’s much more to do to secure the rail network Britain needs.

Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, has abruptly pulled out of the Hornsea 4 offshore wind farm in the North Sea, one of Britain’s biggest-ever projects. This puts the government’s target of net zero for power by 2030 at extreme risk.

No one wants to see a reoccurrence of foot and mouth disease in Britain, remembering the slaughter and burning of millions of animals in 2001. British farmers have been urging the government to act in response to cases on the European mainland.