The Fourcast

The Covid pandemic has seen NHS staff become heroes as they worked round the clock to save lives and ensure the system didn't buckle.

But the focus on coronavirus has left many patients waiting for surgery that has had to be postponed.

In the second episode of our two-part series on the NHS in crisis, we ask whether hospitals in England are going to be cope in the weeks and months to come when another Covid wave looks likely, and staff try to address an ever-growing backlog.

Sources: BBC News, Sky News

It's been an unprecedented year for our national health service, the first global pandemic to hit during its 73-year existence.

But is the worst yet to come? With a waiting list of five million cancelled surgeries and GPs flooded by patients wanting appointments. Can the NHS cope with the backlog caused by the coronavirus?

And what about those who still haven't even come forward with their problems or their illnesses? The roughly seven million who never made themselves known for fear of catching the virus, as well as for fear of putting added pressure on an under-strain NHS.

In the first episode of our two-part series on the NHS in crisis, we look at primary care and the GP practices that are trying to get back to normal when normality still feels so out of reach.

Sources: BBC News, Sky News, ITV News, IGPM

In the UK there is a general 24-week time limit to have an abortion.   But if the fetus has a substantial risk of having a series physical or mental disabilities once born, that time limit does not apply.    A woman with Down's Syndrome is leading a high court case to challenge these laws.    Today's episode of The Fourcast is all about actor, presenter and dancer Reuben Reuter.    He talks to Kiran about the misinformation and risks that stand in his community's way.   Sources: RTE Radio, CBS, Benefit Cosmetics UK

Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury, Telford and East Kent.

Those are the names of hospital trusts where the failures in maternity care have been exposed. And now, sadly, there’s one more – Nottingham University Trust.

A joint investigation by Channel 4 News and Shaun Lintern at The Independent exposed a maternity service accused of bad care and neglect after dozens of babies were left with brain damage or tragically died. They found from 2010 to 2020, at least 46 babies have suffered brain damage and 19 have been stillborn at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS trust maternity units.

But this story of poor care of mothers and babies, one of repeated failures to investigate deaths of babies in maternity units, is one we’ve heard many times before.

So why do we keep getting it wrong?

Is there something fundamentally wrong with the way babies are born in this country?

Sources: BBC News, ITV News, 5 News

It was all meant to be historic. A once in a generation moment. 55 years of hurt no more. Whatever the result, England had finally broken that painful barrier and made it into a final.

And yet even before a kick of the ball, something was rotten around Wembley Way.   After hours of drinking all day last Sunday, people smashed through flimsy fences, they pushed through turnstiles, they kicked, they punched, and they made their way into those hallowed seats. All without a ticket.   And then after the defeat, the racism online.   How did it come to this? That a summer of hope and joy could turn so ugly in mere hours?

Today, we look at what happened in and around Wembley last Sunday - as well as what happened online - and ask what it all says about the English of today.

Many dream of owning a second home - especially as the workforce ditches the office, and people consider alternative living and working arrangements. 

But what if your second home was driving up property prices, making buying a home impossible for local people, or endangering the language and culture of the area? 

Our home affairs correspondent Andy Davies has visited towns in Wales where some say that second home ownership is a threat to their very identity.

Myanmar’s military junta has taken full control of the “blood jade” mines, worth billions of dollars, fuelling conflict in the region.

And as the Generals and other armed ethnic insurgencies line their pockets, migrant artisanal miners risk their lives in appalling conditions, toiling in the rubble of what the Junta leave behind.

Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller has been looking into the industry that’s been called “the biggest natural resource heist in modern history.”

Sorry to be a downer - but while the football is now over - Covid definitely is not - and is a month of sporting socials to blame?

For nearly three months, cases were declining across Europe. But not anymore.

The risk of a new wave on the continent is growing. Yet England is set to ditch masks and social distancing and will allow full capacity football matches.

That’s despite Japan banning spectators from most events at this summer's Olympics - and despite recent data showing that men in England have been more likely to test positive for Covid recently because they’ve been watching the football together

So was Euro2020 behind some of the rising cases in the last few weeks in Europe and what does the data say about how risky large-scale events are when it comes to Covid?

Despite rising Covid infections and the threat of new variants, the UK government promises when England exits lockdown on July 19, it will be for the very last time.

But is that a promise they can keep? And will vaccine boosters be the key that will lock the door behind us on the way out?

We speak to Professor Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, and Stephen Reicher, Professor of Psychology at the University of St Andrews and member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science, about what the next few months could look like. 

Sources: ITN, BBC

Last month an election happened that you might not have known about.    It was for hereditary peerages in the House of Lords and it gave three men a right to sit in our Parliament for life. There were only 36 people who voted in that election.   When Tony Blair whittled down the hereditary peers from several hundred to just 92, they were meant to only sit there for a few years. Yet here are, 21 years later, and nothing has changed.   We speak to a hereditary peer, a life peer and a constitutional expert to understand why it’s so damn hard to try to change a House that is one of the largest parliamentary bodies in the world - only beaten in number by the Chinese National People's Congress.