and tributes for the legendary rock guitaristjeff beck who s died at the age of 78. there s more evidence today of the crisis in the nhs in england, ambulance response times in december were the worse on record. were the worst on record. for category two emergency calls, including strokes, they were more than an hour and a half on average. the target is 18 minutes. the highest priority calls with an immediate threat to life took almost 11 minutes on average, the target is seven. and patients are waiting even longer in accident and emergency, 35% waited more than four hours that s another record. our health correspondent jim reed reports. long queues for ambulances, the most 999 calls ever, record waits in a&e, new figures today show in blunt terms the pressure the nhs is under. martin started feeling chest pains in his home in east sussex in november. his family rang three times for an ambulance. we kept thinking, the ambulance will pull up any minute, it is going to ar
more of those pictures to come from around the planet, of course. those are the headlines. now on bbc news, addiction: a mental health crisis? a warning, this programme deals with upsetting themes. hello. hi. tony. jeremy. it is april 2021 and i am in north west england meeting tony. covid rules apply. we still have our masks on. with a bit of luck we re getting the end of it. thankfully we hit it off and that is good news because for the next year or so i will see a lot of him. when we finish with this what would you like people to understand about you and people like you that we do not understand at the moment? we feel love and hate like everybody else, we are people just like everybody else. we are human beings. most drug addicts have a reason that they are addicted. for tony, birkenhead is home. just across the river from liverpool. there are drug problems here, yes, but also an understanding of this inextricable link between addiction and mental health problems. this is
programme: fighting rages in eastern ukraine in one of the bloodiest battles since the start of the war, as russia sends in mercenary forces. more torrential rain and storms in california wreak damage and put millions of people at risk. and evading rescue: the seal trapped in a fishing lake in essex who, funnily enough, seems to be in no hurry to leave. and coming up on the bbc news channel. england captain 0wen farrell is set to be clearfor their six nations opener against scotland despite a four week ban for a dangerous tackle. good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six. ambulance workers in england and wales are striking over pay for a second time. they have been joined this time by call handlers, which is why managers are warning the impact of this strike is likely to be worse than last month s. some of the walkouts started at midnight, but the duration and scale of the disruption varies across different parts of england and wales. only the east of england ambulance