Newspaper headlines: NHS video appointments and staffing shortage
- Published
Many of the front pages carry reaction to the new 10-year plan for the NHS in England - with concerns over the service's staffing crisis, and digital consultations becoming the norm for patients.
The Daily Mirror headlines the story as a Tory NHS revolution that is the "wrong medicine".
It says the plan will bring smartphone appointments and Skype consultations, when experts who have worked in frontline services say the real need is for thousands more staff.
The i newspaper focuses its coverage on the plan's grand ambition to plug the hole in the workforce. Its front page evokes the famous Lord Kitchener recruitment poster, reporting that the world's doctors and nurses are being told: "The NHS needs you".
Meanwhile, "millions of NHS patients to see doctor by Skype" is the headline in the Times.
Its leader column says the new money being made available to the NHS under the plan will lead it "out of the desert but hardly to the land of milk and honey".
The paper adds that there are reasons to hope that it may succeed where previous reforms have failed, but the key question is: "Is management up to it?"
Concerns are expressed in many papers about the impact of a move away from face-to-face consultations.
"The doctor will see you by Skype" is the Mail's take as it reports that tens of millions of NHS appointments will be carried out by video-link rather than face to face.
But writing in the Express, the medical director for NHS England, Sir Stephen Powis, insists that the move towards digital is a positive that will mean "even more convenient access to your local GP".
"For anyone who needs one, GP appointments will now be available at the touch of a button, via a smartphone or online," he says.
Brexit deal or no deal
The Telegraph leads with a claim that British and European officials are exploring a delay to Brexit as the prime minister heads towards the crucial Commons vote on her deal.
The paper says that despite the government insisting it has no intention of asking for an extension to the negotiation period, three separate EU sources have told it that UK officials had been "putting out feelers" and "testing the water" on the possibility of extending Article 50.
Meanwhile, the country can't afford to play "Brexit Chicken", the Labour former minister Yvette Cooper writes in the Guardian, as she explains why she is leading a cross-party group of MPs in putting forward an amendment to the government's Finance Bill.
It will, Ms Cooper claims in her article, ensure the government cannot use the bill to implement a no-deal Brexit without first giving parliament a vote - or making an application to extend Article 50.
Ahead of the Commons vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal next week, the chairman of the European Research Group, Jacob Rees-Mogg, assesses the PM's chances of success in the Telegraph.
He likens the withdrawal agreement to a fairground carousel which goes round and round without ever changing.
Mr Rees-Mogg adds that in the absence of any new solutions from Mrs May, views have hardened against her proposal and that no matter how many times it is put to the Commons, the result will be the same.
There is universal coverage in the papers of the first court appearance of the man accused of murdering Lee Pomeroy on a train from Guildford to London last Friday.
Photographs of the defendant, 35-year-old Darren Pencille, sit alongside reports of how he told Staines Magistrates Court he was paranoid and hearing voices.
Social housing
"The home affront" is how the Sun headlines an article written by Lord Jim O'Neill, a former treasury minister and one of 16 independent commissioners who have spent a year looking at the future of social housing.
Their report calls for more than three million new social homes by 2040, the paper reports.
Lord O'Neill says that an explosion in the private renting sector is a "scandal" that's the "number one enemy of aspiration in Britain today".
Meanwhile, according to the Times, a "fifth of army can't be deployed".
It reports that a Freedom of Information request has revealed that more than 7,000 troops are not fit to be sent abroad because of health issues, while nearly 10,000 have limitations on roles they can carry out in other countries.
The Ministry of Defence tells the paper it has enough personnel for operations.
And the Telegraph reports that the Foreign Office - famed for its secretive approach in the past - is now divulging its diplomatic tactics in a free online course.
It offers sage nuggets of advice such as: "Never forget that you might have a revolution in your country tomorrow. So the person who wants to see you today, who seems very unimportant and perhaps even boring, might become incredibly important tomorrow."