Avanti West Coast has today been granted another six-month contract extension, after the government says it has made “recent service improvements”.
The company had previously been given until 1 April 2023 to continue running the West Coast Main Line from London to Glasgow by the Department for Transport (DfT), but had been told that it needed to “drastically improve” its services if it was to stand any chance of having the contract extended further beyond that date.
And now, it’s been announced by the DfT that after “significant improvements have been made since October”, the company has been awarded a further six-month extension to its contract.
The DfT says this decision comes after Avanti was ordered to develop a recovery plan aimed at “addressing poor performance on vital West Coast Main Line routes” – including between Manchester, Birmingham, and London.
Avanti West Coast has been granted another six-month contract extension / Credit: Avanti West Coast
Shortly after being placed on the first short-term contract back in October, Transport Secretary Mark Harper says he travelled to Manchester to meet with stakeholders so he could “further understand what could be done to address the situation and improve services” – and, according to the DfT, this meeting led to the decision to introduce a recovery timetable.
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The recovery timetable, which was introduced on 11 December 2022, is said to have since “significantly reduced reliance on overtime working” and has seen services increase from 180 trains per day to 264 on weekdays – which is apparently the highest level in over two years.
The government believes Avanti West Coast has seen “very significant improvements across services” since the introduction of this timetable.
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As well as an increase to weekday services, the DfT says Avanti West Coast has also seen a reduction in service cancellations from nearly 25% in August 2022, to 4.2% in early March 2023, which is the lowest in over 12 months.
90% of trains are also said to now arriving within 15 minutes of the booked time, and over 100 additional drivers have been recruited – which is “reducing reliance on union-controlled overtime working”.
The contract extension comes after ‘recent service improvements’ / Credit: Avanti West Coast
The government has conceded though that, although Avanti West Coast has made “significant progress” in the past six months, further work needs to be done to “restore reliability and punctuality to the standards that passengers rightly expect”.
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This will include delivering more reliable weekend services, continued reductions in cancellations, and improvements in passenger information during planned and unplanned disruption.
“The routes Avanti West Coast run are absolutely vital,” Transport Secretary Mark Harper said.
“I fully understand the frustrations passengers felt at the completely unacceptable services seen last Autumn, but following our intervention, Rail Minister Huw Merriman and I have worked closely with local leaders to put a robust plan in place, which I’m glad to see is working.
“However, there is still more work to be done to bring services up to the standards we expect, which is why over this next six months further improvements will need to be made by Avanti West Coast.”
Featured Image – Avanti West Coast
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NHS to begin offering new one-minute jab to women with ‘aggressive’ form of cancer
Emily Sergeant
The NHS is set to begin offering new immunotherapy for hundreds of women with aggressive cervical cancer across the country.
Pembrolizumab – which experts have described as being able to ‘take the handbrake off’ the body’s immune system to target cancer – will now be presented as a new treatment option for women in England with locally-advanced cervical cancer, which means the cancer has grown beyond the cervix to regions such as the pelvic wall, but not yet spread further around the body.
Trials found that adding pembrolizumab to standard chemoradiotherapy helped keep cancer ‘at bay’ for longer, and improved survival rates overall.
Two years after starting the treatment, nearly seven in 10 patients (68%) were still living without their cancer progressing, compared with 57% for those receiving chemoradiotherapy alone, according to NHS figures.
The trial also found that 82.6% of patients were still alive three years after treatment with pembrolizumab and chemoradiotherapy, compared with 74.8% with chemoradiotherapy alone.
Hundreds of women with aggressive cervical cancer are to be offered a new immunotherapy treatment.
It marks one of the biggest improvements in treatment for the disease in years, and could help more women survive and stay cancer-free in the long term.
The drug is either given every three or siz weeks via an infusion, or as a ‘one-minute’ injection, alongside chemoradiotherapy.
The NHS estimates around 550 patients in England will be eligible for the treatment – which has been approved this week by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – over the next two years.
Patients will now receive fast-tracked access, funded by NHS England’s Cancer Drugs Fund.
“This is great news for women facing a diagnosis of aggressive cervical cancer, and represents one of the biggest improvements in treatment for this disease in recent years,” commented Professor Peter Johnson, who is the NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer.
“Combining this immunotherapy with existing treatment has had very positive effect for patients in trials, helping the body’s immune system to target cancer more effectively.
“We’re delighted it will be available for patients on the NHS as it could help hundreds more women survive and stay cancer-free in the long-term.”
Featured Image – NappyStudio (via Unsplash)
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Andy Burnham wants to bring the ‘Greater Manchester way’ to Westminster
Emily Sergeant
Andy Burnham has set out his vision for the country if he is to become Prime Minister.
In case you need brining up to speed first, after it was announced earlier this month that Andy Burnham had clinched the victory in the crucial Makerfield by-election, winning 24,927 votes (54.8% vote share) and a majority of 9,231, he then went onto announce his intention to run for Labour Party leader, and therefore Prime Minister, after Keir Starmer confirmed he would be stepping down.
And this week, Mr Burnham has now delivered his first speech as part of his ongoing campaign, addressing how he plans to give the country a ‘new direction’.
Burnham says that he wants to bring the ‘Greater Manchester way’ to Westminster.
A lot has been discussed and reported on when it comes to Burnham’s intentions to create a so-called Number 10 North here in Manchester, but what exactly does it mean to take the ‘Greater Manchester way’ to the capital?
“The Greater Manchester way is based on strong partnership between all sectors: public, private, community, voluntary, academic, faith, and our trade unions,” Burnham said in his speech.
He continued: “When I started as Mayor in 2017, we set about building a new approach, a new politics based on the exact opposite of the Westminster approach.
“Place-first, not party-first. Problem-solving, not point-scoring. Long-term, not short-term.
“A decade on, it’s incredible how much we’ve been able to achieve by working together instead of fighting against one another.”
Burnham said he feels the truth is that the country spends ‘too much time arguing and not enough time doing’ and that for Britain to get back where it ‘should be’, his Government would ask everyone to ‘face the same way’ and then ‘pull in that same direction together’.
He declared that No 10 North will be the ‘nerve centre’ for a rewired Britain.
“It will be the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK,” he concluded. “It will coordinate all parts of Government, at national and local level, to agree a long-term economic strategy and help all places set new growth ambitions.”
Emily Sergeant -
20th March 2023 
