£140k of illegal cigarettes and vapes seized in crackdown on rogue traders
Tens of thousands of illegal cigarettes and vapes have been seized across the borough this year, highlighting the council’s continued crackdown on rogue traders.
In partnership with Greater Manchester Police, Wigan Council’s Trading Standards team has seized 20,767 packs of illegal cigarettes, 1,418 packets of hand rolled tobacco and 2,812 vapes this year. This has an estimated total value of £145,000.
Councillor Kevin Anderson, portfolio holder for Police, Crime and Civil Contingencies, said: “The vast number of illegal products seized by Trading Standards highlights the team’s relentless work in targeting rogue traders and ensuring our residents feel safe in the products they purchase.
“However, the number of seizures also highlights the scale of the problem; underlining the need for a continued and co-ordinated effort to target those responsible and deter others from this activity.”
With these illegal products putting residents – particularly children – at the risk of harm, the borough’s Community Safety Partnership between Trading Standards, police, and other partners has stepped up enforcement action against those responsible.
In Leigh, Brys Mini Market was closed for three months following repeated seizures of illicit tobacco and vapes. Euroshop in Wigan town centre was closed for more than two months after underage sales and seizures of illicit tobacco.
An individual from Leigh was also prosecuted after 5,100 packs of illicit cigarettes and 1,300 illicit vapes – valued at over £66,000 – were seized. In a separate case, a car found to be storing illegal tobacco was recently seized in Tyldesley.
In other enforcement action, a rogue trader has been prosecuted for taking £37,000 from two residents and will be sentenced next month. This included demanding £10k for poor roofing job in Atherton and £28k from an 80-year-old Leigh resident for work that was never carried out.
Additionally, following nationwide safety concerns and choking hazards from the sale of fake Labubu toys, the council’s Trading Standards team have seized 1,800 items of the counterfeit goods that were on sale in shops across the borough.
Highlighting further work to protect residents, Trading Standards also operate a Neighbourhood Champions initiative to help tackle rogue traders calling uninvited at people’s homes.
So far, 22 volunteers have signed up to give advice to residents in their neighbourhoods and help protect them from doorstep crime, with more than 3,000 houses visited across the borough.
Trading Standards also operate the Good Trader Scheme, which helps residents find reputable traders for a range of domestic services, using verified reviews to give consumers confidence and reassurance in their choices. With more than 160 local traders vetted and around 30,000 resident enquiries per year, it is one of the largest local authority run trader schemes in the country.
Councillor Paul Prescott, portfolio holder for Planning, Environmental Services and Transport, added: “The investigations, vetting, and enforcement action undertaken by our Trading Standards team highlights their tireless work in tackling unscrupulous traders and deceitful businesses.
“Often going under the radar, the team’s work is vital in keeping residents protected from unsafe work and, harmful, often illegal goods, and I encourage all residents to report concerns of rogue traders to Trading Standards or the police.”
TV chefs’ attempts to outdo each other lead to increasingly lavish programmes.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s 2004 River Cottage special saw him create a medieval 10-bird roast, while Heston Blumenthal’s 2007 Perfect Christmas included frankincense tea, geese fed on pine needle essence and reindeer milk ice cream.
This lavishness, however, is not necessarily reflected in our homes. A 2025 YouGov poll suggests the median expected spend on Christmas food and drink this year is £150 – a decrease from a decade ago, when a similar poll suggested an average spend of £174 (£242 adjusted for inflation).
The 2025 poll also suggests a third of Britons are at “least fairly worried” about the impact of Christmas on their personal finances.
TV chef and The Batch Lady Saves Christmas author Suzanne Mulholland advocates doing as much of the cooking in advance in order to spread the cost and save on waste.
“You can start in November,” she says. “Grab a cup of coffee on a rainy day and think who you’ve got coming, how long they are staying, and if they have any dietary requirements.
“Then pick up a few things every week, prep them and get them in your freezer. Planning really does cut down on food waste, you spread the cost and you’re not in panic mode fighting for that last chipolata in the supermarket.”
She sees herself as moving away from the aspirational type of TV chef. “To me, the recipes don’t really matter, it’s about helping people save money, save time and save head space.”
When it comes to Christmas, she says it is time we reconsider which food traditions work for us and which we are doing for the sake of it.
“I think we are guilty of shopping the way our parents used to shop for Christmas, mass panic buying a few days before.
“But now we’ve got better technology. Things last longer, and shops are open on Boxing Day.”
Looking for your festive food fix? A 24 hour Festive Food Channel is streaming now on BBC iPlayer
Tokyo, December 24, 2025 – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Environmental & Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. (MHIEC), a part of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group, has signed a contract to supply key equipment for the BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) project of the Taichung Wenshan Waste-to-Energy (WtE) Plant in Taichung City, Taiwan.
The existing Taichung Wenshan WtE Plant, located in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, has been in operation since 1995. Due to aging infrastructure, the Taichung City Government is planning to construct and operate a new plant through a BOT scheme. MHIEC concluded a contract on December 19th with the Special Purpose Company (SPC) awarded this BOT project by the Taichung City Environmental Protection Bureau to supply major equipment including the incinerator units. Through this contract, MHIEC will contribute to the stable operation of the plant.
The SPC was established as a joint venture between Onyx Ta-Ho Environmental Services Co., Ltd., Taiwan’s largest waste management company, and TCC Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of TCC Group Holdings Co., Ltd., Taiwan’s largest cement company. The term of the BOT project is expected to be 30 years.
MHIEC will deliver its state-of-the-art proprietary V-type stoker waste incinerator (hereafter, “V-type stoker furnace”(Note)), which achieves high environmental performance and realizes the highest power generation efficiency among waste incineration power generation facilities in Taiwan.
MHIEC has a proven track record of delivering seven WtE facilities in Taiwan. Moving forward, MHIEC will further promote the expansion of the V-type stoker furnace and enhance after-sales service, contributing to the stabilization of waste treatment and the realization of a carbon-neutral society in Taiwan.
A stoker furnace is a mainstream type of municipal waste incinerator where air is blown from beneath a grate made of heat-resistant metal bars, pushing the waste on top forward while burning it. The V-type stoker furnace optimizes the grate structure and furnace shape so that the grate surface faces the flame center during drying, combustion, and post-combustion stages, allowing efficient radiant heat transfer for incineration. This design enables stable incineration and volume reduction of heterogeneous waste, reducing the amount of unburned residue (char) in the ash, thereby lowering environmental impact.
■ Project Summary
Client
Taichung City Environmental Protection Bureau
Project name
Taichung City Wenshan Waste to Energy Plant BOT Project
At this time of year, recycling and trash bins are overflowing with shipping boxes, wrapping paper and other holiday byproducts. You might also be wondering: Can I recycle this?
From cardboard boxes to wrapping paper to burnout string lights and Christmas trees, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shares tips on how to make your holiday cleanup more eco-friendly.
No matter where you live in Wisconsin, some key things can be recycled, said DNR Recycling and Waste Diversion Program Coordinator Jennifer Semrau.
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“From La Crosse to Milwaukee to the Northwoods, you can recycle containers made of steel, aluminum, glass, plastics No. 1 and No. 2, as well as cardboard, newspaper, magazines, office paper and other papers,” Semrau said at a recent press conference.
Different municipalities have different rules. Semrau recommends checking in to see what can be recycled locally and how you need to prepare it.
As for all of the holiday trimmings, be sure to check for glitter, ribbons and tinsel. Some wrapping paper can be recycled, but only if it’s plain paper. And tissue paper belongs in the trash.
“A common reason (recycling) programs will say no wrapping paper at all is because people tend to include all the bows and ribbons with their wrapping paper when they’re disposing of it, or they take their paper and crinkle it up,” Semrau said.
When it comes to your Christmas tree, check with your local municipality for curbside pickup dates or drop-off sites at yard waste centers. But it’s key to remove all of the decorations and lights.
“Your string of holiday lights may have burned out, but they should not be placed in your recycling bin,” Semrau said. “Holiday lights are called tanglers, meaning they can wrap around recycling equipment … causing operations to come to a grinding halt.”
Ricky Collins untangles a string of lights to hang on a tree along Peachtree Street in midtown Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, in Atlanta. David Goldman/AP Photo
Last, Semrau asks that people take old batteries and electronics to drop off sites instead of tossing them in the trash. (Find out where to take your batteries here.)
“Several very damaging fires, likely caused by batteries, have occurred in collection trucks and facilities around Wisconsin,” she said. “Operators report that smaller fires are often a weekly occurrence.”
Waste isn’t just confined to paper products and old trees — the DNR also recommends finding ways to cut down on food waste.
Erik Flesch is an organics waste management specialist with the DNR. He said household food waste makes up the largest part of all trash in Wisconsin landfills — nearly 300 pounds of food per person.
This year, the agency is working to cut landfilled food waste in half.
“While we celebrate the season with an abundance of the people and the things we hold dear, it’s important to think about food — not just how much we have, but also how much we waste,” Flesch said.
To cut down on waste, Flesch suggests meal planning and taking inventory of your pantry before heading to the grocery store. If and when you end up with leftovers, he recommends repurposing them or having tupperware on hand to share with guests.
If all else fails, compost what you can — either in your backyard or at a community compost site.
Ambient AI scribes—digital tools that listen to clinician–patient encounters and draft clinical notes—have moved from pilot projects into mainstream use at many large health systems. These tools promise to relieve physicians of tedious documentation and have shown early success in reducing burnout and after-hours “pajama time.” Independent evaluations confirm reductions in cognitive load and burnout1,2.
Yet adoption is no longer driven solely by well-being. The business case increasingly centers on revenue capture through more intensive coding. Ambience Healthcare’s July 2025 funding announcement, for instance, described its platform as “the leading ambient AI system for documentation, coding, and clinical documentation integrity,” highlighting how it “drives revenue-cycle performance”3. This language marks a clear pivot from earlier messaging about saving doctors time, signaling that ambient AI is now positioned as both a burnout remedy and a revenue engine—a shift that raises important questions about who ultimately benefits.
Competitive forces are accelerating this transition (Table 1). Doximity’s release of a free AI scribe signals that basic transcription is commoditizing4, shifting differentiation “after the transcript”—to how well products structure documentation that supports compliant, higher-complexity coding and comprehensive problem lists. Riverside Health in Virginia saw an 11% rise in physician work relative value units (wRVUs) and a 14% increase in documented Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) diagnoses per encounter5. Northwestern Medicine clinicians using Nuance DAX billed more high-level Evaluation and Management (E/M) visits on average6, and a 2024 Texas Oncology study found that ambient scribes increased documented diagnoses from 3.0 to 4.1 per encounter7.
Table 1 Selected ambient AI scribe systems in current use
Collectively, these findings suggest that while ambient AI remains framed publicly as a tool for efficiency and burnout relief, its economic implications are increasingly difficult to ignore. It is against this backdrop that we compare how ambient scribes interact with U.S. fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage payment models (summarized in Table 2).
Table 2 Payment models explained
Divergent incentives in fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage
This emerging revenue narrative raises two questions. First, can ambient AI improve the fidelity of documentation without distorting clinical priorities? Existing payment systems already influence clinical priorities and documentation, even without AI; the concern is whether ambient scribes amplify, mitigate, or reconfigure those distortions. Second, even if health systems see a short-term revenue bump, what happens once payers respond? Because incentives differ by payment model, we contrast Medicare Advantage (MA) and fee‑for‑service (FFS)—including U.S. Original Medicare Parts A and B—as illustrative examples (Table 2), noting that analogous distinctions between per‑encounter payment and risk‑adjusted capitation exist in other health systems as well.
On the first question, potential rises in wRVUs or HCCs do not necessarily mean upcoding; they often reflect previously omitted details now captured. From the provider’s viewpoint, capturing all legitimate billing complexity also helps offset the cost of ambient AI subscriptions. In the absence of direct reimbursement pathways, accurate coding becomes essential for sustaining adoption. Under-documentation is common: busy clinicians omit longstanding conditions, understate decision complexity, or skip the specificity coding rules require. Hospitals have long used electronic health record tools—such as Epic’s Best Practice Advisories (BPAs)—to remind clinicians to add diagnoses for risk adjustment8. At the policy level, the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Digital Medicine Payment Advisory Group is advising on coding and payment pathways for AI—including ambient AI scribes—and, given that practice expense is a major RVU component under AMA’s Resource-Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS), how these costs are classified has become an important question for reimbursement design. From a payment perspective, ambient AI interacts with FFS and MA in different ways for providers and plans. In FFS (including Original Medicare and commercial fee-for-service), richer documentation tends to support higher-level E/M codes and additional billable services, so the revenue effect flows directly to clinicians and health systems. In MA, richer documentation primarily increases the plan’s risk-adjusted capitation payments by raising members’ risk scores; providers benefit only if their contracts with the plan share in that additional revenue (e.g., through capitation, shared savings, or risk- and quality-based bonuses).
What we mean by “upcoding” differs by market. In MA and other capitated, risk-adjusted arrangements, upcoding means documenting additional diagnoses (often HCCs) that raise risk scores and, in turn, payments to plans and—where contracts pass through some of that revenue—sometimes to providers. In FFS, it means billing a higher E/M level or more services based on documented complexity. Ambient AI can facilitate both: more complete diagnosis capture in MA and more support for higher-level E/M coding in FFS. Similar dynamics exist in DRG-based hospital payment, where more detailed documentation can shift discharges into higher-weighted DRGs. Related dynamics appear in other systems that adjust payments based on coded diagnoses or activity—for example, primary care commissioning in the English NHS—although the magnitude of payment differences and the scope for ambient scribes to shift revenue may be smaller.
Payer responses and long-run equilibrium
The second question is where policy meets economics, especially in MA, where risk scores are tied to payments to plans. More complete documentation initially boosts risk‑adjusted capitation payments for MA plans, but regulators quickly adjust risk‑score formulas. As adoption widens, the financial advantage erodes and may even raise premiums for all. MA already applies coding intensity adjustments; if AI accelerates diagnostic capture, those offsets—and other countermeasures—will likely deepen. Evidence shows in-home risk assessments and chart reviews raise risk scores and payments—the patterns that prompted CMS to institute coding intensity adjustments9. Whether providers share in any temporary revenue gain depends on how they are paid by the plan—pure FFS contracts may see little direct impact, whereas capitated or shared-savings arrangements can transmit plan revenue gains to clinicians and health systems. If more complete documentation also prompts earlier or more appropriate treatment—for example, more proactive management of chronic conditions that are now reliably captured—ambient scribes could contribute to better outcomes and, in value‑based or prevention‑oriented systems, potentially lower long‑run costs rather than simply higher near‑term payments.
Payer responses will also play out in provider contracts. In FFS arrangements, health plans can tighten audits, deploy automated E/M downcoding tools, or cut base rates at renegotiation to offset documentation‑driven level increases, especially when outcomes do not improve. For example, starting in October 2025, Cigna began automatically reducing many level 4–5 E/M claims by one level unless documentation clearly supports higher complexity10, and Aetna Better Health has applied similar reviews11. Some providers may thus face blended effects: a near-term bump from richer documentation, followed by across-the-board offsets (in capitated programs) and contract-level rate recalibration (in FFS). In either case, late adopters may end up missing the temporary upside yet practicing under a lower baseline set after everyone else’s gains have been priced in.
Who pays? Who gains?
Who ultimately pays for the potential rise in payments driven by ambient scribe technology? In the case of MA, taxpayers fund higher risk-adjusted payments to plans—and, where revenue is shared, to providers—until CMS adjustments catch up; in commercial FFS markets, employers and workers bear higher premiums until plans lower fees or downcode. Non-adopters may experience relative losses during the transition if baseline rates fall in response to industry-wide coding intensity. Vendors will have winners and losers; the winners will profit from subscription revenue and accumulated data assets. For clinicians and patients, the promise persists: less pajama time and a record that better reflects the encounter. The unresolved question is whether better coding translates into better care.
Distributional implications deserve attention. Large systems with integration teams, clinical documentation integrity (CDI) staff, and capital budgets can adopt and tune these tools fastest. Safety-net clinics and small practices may lag, either because subscription and workflow costs are real or because they are wary of compliance exposure. If baseline rates adjust downward while sophisticated adopters keep finding compliant documentation gains at the margin, the gap between resourced and under-resourced providers could widen. MA-heavy safety-net practices may be especially exposed: coding-intensity adjustments could claw back recent gains, leaving late adopters worse off. That is not an argument to halt adoption; it is a case for pairing diffusion with guardrails and targeted support.
Governance and policy guardrails
What should those guardrails be? First, physicians and health systems must retain authorship: disable auto-accept and require active review of diagnoses and billing elements. Random audits comparing audio to signed notes can check drift toward “chart-stuffing.” Second, policymakers and large health systems could require transparency about AI-drafted content and certify tools that meet documentation quality standards. Such guardrails would protect against excessive note inflation while supporting appropriate use. Third, clinicians evaluating vendors should evaluate vendor claims against clinical and operational endpoints, not higher E/M levels or HCC capture. Fourth, health systems should exercise contract and pricing discipline: avoid overpaying in a race to match competitors; include clawbacks if payer offsets occur; protect data rights and avoid vendor lock-in; and benchmark against low-cost scribing to ensure one is paying for value beyond transcription. Fifth, clinicians in direct contact with patients should be transparent with patients. A clear, nontechnical disclosure that an AI assistant records to help the clinician document the visit—and that the clinician reviews and controls the note—can protect trust without derailing care12. Finally, payers and policymakers should align oversight with value. Audits should test medical necessity; in capitated programs, recalibrate risk models so payments track patients’ true need.
Ambient AI collapses the distance between care and coding more completely than any prior documentation tool. If revenue optimization becomes its defining purpose, we risk repeating a familiar cycle—an arms race that ends with higher administrative friction, payer pushback, and little improvement at the bedside. The equilibrium is still in flux. In the near term, some systems will capture real revenue gains; in time, commoditization and payer countermeasures will erode those advantages. Rather than accept a payer–provider standoff, regulators could make downcoding criteria transparent and appealable, while setting clear rules for AI-generated notes. Focused audits should target truly unjustified upcoding without penalizing completeness. These steps would align ambient AI with value-based care rather than a coming coding arms race.
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Audenshaw video
Summary
At about 11:25 on 6 September 2024, a freight train derailed as it crossed a bridge that carries the railway over a public footpath in Audenshaw, Greater Manchester. The derailment involved 9 of the train’s 24 fully laden wagons and led to extensive damage to the track, the bridge and some of the wagons. No one was injured during the accident, but the railway at this location was closed for around 8 weeks, while repairs were undertaken.
The derailment occurred due to a loss of restraint of the track gauge between the rails. This caused the wagons’ wheels on the right-hand side to drop from the rail into this widening space.
The railway tracks over the bridge were installed on a longitudinal bearer system (LBS). An LBS is a track support arrangement in which the rails are mounted on timber bearers that run longitudinally under the rails and not on sleepers and ballast, as is typically found on the railway. The rails are mounted using baseplates, which are screwed onto the bearers.
The spread of the track’s gauge was caused by the failure of a number of the screws securing the baseplates to the longitudinal wooden bearers. Subsequent metallurgical examinations showed that these screws had sustained fatigue damage before the arrival of the train. RAIB examinations of a section of the LBS recovered from site found that there had been previous screw failures at the same locations. Records of inspection and maintenance activities confirmed that there had been at least three previous failures, with one occasion known to have been before 2020, although many of the required records were not available.
Vehicle dynamics analysis and fatigue calculations carried out by RAIB during this investigation showed that these screws were not expected to have an infinite fatigue life when installed in the configuration used on the bridge, even though the forces from trains on the track were below the maximum limits stated in Network Rail standards. The LBS was installed in 2007 and an increase in the volume of traffic over the bridge since 2015 had accelerated the rate of fatigue of the screws.
The investigation also found that those screws which had failed, or were failing before the passage of the train, had not been detected by Network Rail’s inspection regime. This was because both the automated and manual inspection regimes were not capable of reliably detecting this type of failure. RAIB also found that the regular dynamic track geometry measurements were within the allowable limits in standards, so no further action was mandated. It further found that the significance of previous screw failures had not been appreciated by those responsible for inspecting and maintaining the LBS at this bridge.
There were two underlying factors. Network Rail did not have effective processes for managing LBS assets, in regard to their design assurance, installation, inspection and maintenance.
RAIB also found that the track team in the maintenance unit responsible for the LBS at this bridge had neither recorded, nor reported, previous screw failures, and this had not been identified nor corrected by Network Rail’s assurance regime over a period of years.
Recommendations
RAIB has made eight recommendations to Network Rail. The first recommendation aims to give greater assurance of the components used in its designs of LBS. The second recommendation is to improve its management of LBSs, including design, installation and maintenance guidance, and the reporting of component failures. The third recommendation deals with the competence of staff who manage those assets.
The fourth recommendation is for Network Rail to improve the interfaces between the two disciplines responsible for the track and structures assets to better manage them. The fifth recommendation is for Network Rail to better understand the effects from the condition of the LBS supporting structure on the track’s behaviour.
The sixth recommendation is for Network Rail to review the way in which it assesses the effects of changes in rail traffic on its LBS assets and to consider any subsequent necessary changes in design, inspection or maintenance activity.
The seventh recommendation is to improve its records of its LBS assets, ensuring that it knows the configurations of its LBS assets nationwide.
The eighth recommendation is for Network Rail to improve its own assurance processes for LBS assets to ensure that staff are keeping accurate records of inspection and maintenance activities.
Notes to editors
The sole purpose of RAIB investigations is to prevent future accidents and incidents and improve railway safety. RAIB does not establish blame, liability or carry out prosecutions.
RAIB operates, as far as possible, in an open and transparent manner. While our investigations are completely independent of the railway industry, we do maintain close liaison with railway companies and if we discover matters that may affect the safety of the railway, we make sure that information about them is circulated to the right people as soon as possible, and certainly long before publication of our final report.
Still looking for a last-minute Christmas gift? A new poll finds that most people find cash or gift cards an acceptable holiday gift.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
All right, you got one more shopping day before Christmas. For some people, it’s time to get started. If you’re still searching for a gift, you could take inspiration from this 1953 hit by Eartha Kitt.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SANTA BABY”)
EARTHA KITT: (Singing) Santa, baby, just slip a sable under the tree for me. Been an awful good girl.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
If, however, you don’t want to splurge on a fur coat or a ’54 convertible or the deed to a platinum mine…
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
FADEL: …A poll from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggests most Americans think giving cash is just fine, which is my preferred gift.
INSKEEP: Got it.
MARJORIE CONNELLY: We asked a question on what people consider suitable or acceptable holiday gifts, and we gave them four options to say whether they thought they were acceptable or not acceptable.
INSKEEP: We are listening to Marjorie Connelly, a senior fellow at AP-NORC. The poll found about 60% of Americans – 6 out of 10 – think cash is a very acceptable present. Only 6% think cash is very unacceptable. It was about the same for gift cards, although there is a generation gap.
CONNELLY: We found that older people, they did not find that cash or gift cards were quite as acceptable as younger people. Younger people were very in favor of getting cash or gift cards.
FADEL: OK, that tracks ’cause I give cash to all my nephews and nieces, and they love it.
INSKEEP: There you go.
FADEL: Connelly also warns how well cash or gift cards are received can depend on who’s giving.
CONNELLY: If you’re getting the cash from, you know, your great-aunt or your grandmother, it’s one thing. I don’t know if I’d want to get cash from my boyfriend.
INSKEEP: Ah, I see.
FADEL: Yeah, that makes sense. The poll also finds that cash is preferable to another last-minute option – regifting. Just 22% of the respondents thought that was very acceptable.
CONNELLY: If something’s very nice, and I think the other person would appreciate it, I think that would be OK. If it’s just something that’s junky, I’m just getting it – moving it out of my house, that’s another story.
INSKEEP: (Laughter) Here’s something that’s more popular than regifting – giving an item bought secondhand. About 30% say that’s very acceptable, but again, the context matters.
CONNELLY: I would give a secondhand item that maybe came from a really – like, a nice antique store as – not, like, a – you know, a junk store.
FADEL: OK. So I guess a regifting closet is not a thing we should be doing.
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Newfoundland and Labrador’s registered nurses’ union is calling on families to stay vigilant about the care of their loved ones who find themselves in the health-care system this holiday season.
Yvette Coffey, president of the province’s registered nurses’ union, said the provincial health authority needs to end its reliance on mandatory overtime just to keep health-care services running.
“It is a big, big potential for undue harm for the people who are in our care over this holiday season,” Coffey told CBC Radio’s On the Go.
Coffey said the union and health authority were supposed to meet almost two weeks ago to discuss scheduling issues, which happened earlier this week.
“If they had met with us on December 12, in early December, we wouldn’t be talking about that issue right now with an emergency department without any staff over Christmas,” Coffey said.
According to Coffey, more than a dozen nurses were mandated to work overtime at Carbonear General Hospital last weekend. (Eddy Kennedy/CBC)
If departments aren’t staffed, registered nurses will be mandated to work overtime. Last weekend in Carbonear, Coffey said more than a dozen people had to stay beyond their eight or 12 hour shifts.
Coffey said once mandated for overtime nurses are asked to self-assess whether they are fit to practice or too exhausted.
“They liken it to the RCMP pulling somebody over who they believe to be impaired and asking them whether or not they feel impaired. There is no external or independent judgement,” she said.
CBC News asked NLHS for an interview on Tuesday but no one was immediately available.
‘Be diligent’
Coffey also cautioned people who find themselves inside the health-care system over the holidays.
“Come for care because the people who are working in that system are dedicated professionals,” she said.
“But you also need to know that some of those nurses might be working 16, 20 or 24-hour shifts, and you need to be diligent, as well, in the care of your loved one.”
Coffey said travel agency nurses aren’t readily available during the holidays, including the Christmas period. She added most travel nurses are from outside the province and they work for private agencies and aren’t invested in the province’s people or healthcare.
“They have no allegiance to us,” she said.
She wants the province to implement a provincial travel pool of nurses and said in January a briefing note will be sent to the provincial government to formally propose the provincial travel pool of nurses.
In the meantime, Coffey said staff and patients may be at risk due to inadequate staffing.
“Mandatory overtime for nurses means increased risk of injury, but for our patients it means increased risks of mistakes and undue harm.”
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