Following this week’s coordinated strikes across the education, rail and public sectors, health unions take their turn at mass action next week as RCN nurses and GMB/Unite ambulance workers undertake the biggest day of NHS strikes in history on Monday (6 February), followed by further nurses’ strikes on Tuesday (7 February) and a Unison union ambulance worker strike on Friday (10 February). There remains little chance of a quick resolution to ongoing pay disputes, with union sources claiming the government is currently stonewalling any offers of future talks on pay. 

Former Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick appears at Southwark Crown Court on Monday and Tuesday (6-7 February) for a two-day sentencing hearing, in a case which has further disgraced the Met and sparked a major review of its workforce.

Carrick is sentenced after pleading guilty to more than 49 sexual offences including 24 counts of rape, in a campaign which targeted more than a dozen women over two decades. Police have admitted missing numerous opportunities to prevent Carrick’s serial offending, prompting senior officials to warn that public trust in policing is now “hanging by a thread”.  Met Commissioner Mark Rowley has moved to introduce sweeping reforms to the capital’s police service in response, with a nine-point plan pledging to ‘deliver change and transformation’.