hello, i'm catherine byaruhanga. gynaecology waiting lists across the uk have more than doubled since the start of the covid pandemic in february 2020. the number of outstanding appointments has now reached more than 750,000. leading gynaecologists say women's health isn't being prioritised, but governments and health authorities say they are working to improve this. 0ur health correspondent catherine burns has been speaking to women who've been suffering with long—term debilitating pain. she cries out this goes way beyond just painful periods. she cries out anna cooper has had 17 surgeries, including having her womb removed, and she's still in pain. she uses a morphine

patch to deal with it. anna has to change her stoma bags every day. she's had her bladder and most of her bowel removed. all this because she has endometriosis, where tissue like the lining of the womb grows in other parts of the body. now, a visit to parliament. she says she's trying to turn her pain into power, campaigning for more support for women's health. the delay in my care has cost me some of my major organs. it's mentally tormented me for most of my adult life because it's really difficult dealing with a condition where i look absolutely fine from the outside, but internally, i'm just in despair. anna's had lots of treatment on the nhs, but says she's also gone into debt, paying £25,000 for private care.

there is not a day that i don't wake up in pain. it's like somebody�*s got a chain wrapped around my stomach and it's just being pulled tighter and tighter, and it's crippling. like anna, vimbai mandaza knows all about pain. it's been going on for years, but she doesn't have a diagnosis yet. sometimes i feel like i'm a prisoner to my womb. it's caging me in. i don't have the words to describe the level of pain. it's literallyjust as simple as, i want a hysterectomy because i'd rather... ifeel everything and i'd rather not feel anything, if that makes sense. that's so radical at 27 to be thinking, ijust want this all gone. yeah, and i think that's what it's just come to because i'm not getting any help or any understanding. other women have told us how living with gynaecology problems affects them. the impact on my life has been utterly devastating. i have liquid morphine on a

probably on a day to day basis. it's so hard to live with. the symptoms don't stop. many have progressive conditions that get worse the longer they're left untreated. across the uk, gynaecology waiting lists have more than doubled since the start of the pandemic to over 750,000. it's hard to figure out exactly how many patients are on those lists, because some could be waiting for more than one appointment. our best estimate, though, is at least 630,000, probably considerably more. to give you an idea of what that could look like, if that was a physical queue of people lined up next to each other starting here, the beginning of the m4 motorway in london, it would stretch out for 160 miles. so that's past the west of england, into wales, past cardiff and as far as bridgend. as a gynaecologist, i am helpless and frustrated. one of the reasons for these

long term waiting lists long—term waiting lists is the persistent gender bias. women's health is constantly deprioritised, so whenever there is a crisis, the first thing that is affected is non—cancer gynaecological conditions. there have been small dips in the gynaecology waiting list, but they're still stubbornly high. women being in pain and off work with these conditions has a wider cost to the economy, about £11 billion a year. so how will authorities get this 160—mile waiting list moving? nhs england says staff are working hard to cut long waits, and it's bringing in more women's health hubs in the community. governments from wales, scotland and northern ireland all say they're trying to improve things too. anna is still on nhs waiting lists and in pain every day. my main source of

positivity is my daughter. i have to keep going for her, i've got no choice. i don't want her generation to suffer the way i've suffered. catherine burns, bbc news. women have been telling 5 live�*s nicky campbell how long waits for specialist care have affected their lives. dee from hatfield says she had to give up herjob in tv due to the pain and is still waiting for treatment. i'm currently, i've been waiting for 18 months now for a stage four endometriosis removal which is bowel infiltrated and a bowel resection, so i'm in excruciating pain daily. it's hard to deal with, very hard to deal with. i feel like i've been forgotten, sort of left behind. the wait sort of weighs on me.

my mental health is struggling. i'm on so much medication, i feel sort of dosed up, which doesn't actually hit the pain, itjust makes you drowsy, so you try to forget about it, but the pain is still there. it affects me daily physically, my walking from my left leg, my right leg. i haven't slept today. i haven't slept at all, and that's what happens when i have pain all the way through the night. and i try and do things to forget it, but i can't. let's speak to consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, dr shohreh beski. how did these long waiting lists come about in just a few years since the pandemic? the

lona years since the pandemic? the long waiting — years since the pandemic? tue: long waiting lists years since the pandemic? tte: long waiting lists were there before the pandemic, and they have continued much more because of the lack of resources in the nhs and also the fact that the women themselves are postponing and delaying their treatment because of other responsibilities they have got. i don't put it all on the nhs, but as a gynaecologist in the nhs, i have seen delays, cancellations and many other aspects lengthening the waiting lists by us women as well as the nhs. i think we should have more knowledge for the women to understand what is normal and what is abnormal. the symptoms

of heavy and painful periods, these may be pushed under the carpet to say this is normal. women have to know that it is abnormal and they are anaemic. they need to attend a doctor, they shouldn't postpone the appointment, and be vocal about their problems. i am sure that if we take on responsibility in our hands, we would manage much better. there is an inherent gender bias.— better. there is an inherent gender bias. don't you think art of gender bias. don't you think part of the _ gender bias. don't you think part of the problem - gender bias. don't you think part of the problem is - gender bias. don't you think part of the problem is that l part of the problem is that sometimes, women are not relieved when they are suffering from debilitating pain, so even when they go to the doctor, maybe they have the expense of not being believed and maybe they might not go next time?— next time? exactly, i agree. inherently. _

next time? exactly, i agree. inherently, all— next time? exactly, i agree. inherently, all these - next time? exactly, i agree. l inherently, all these problems will be pushed because it is not cancer. it's a benign condition. a benign condition can wait. i believe we need to put more research into can delete benign conditions which are not cancer like premenstrual symptoms, like menopause. all these need a lot of research. and we need a multidisciplinary approach to this problem. it is not only surgery. it's not only medical. it is actually therapy, psychotherapy, acupuncture, many other complementary medicines can help a woman with endometriosis. we medicines can help a woman with endometriosis.— endometriosis. we were hearing from a woman — endometriosis. we were hearing from a woman earlier. _ endometriosis. we were hearing from a woman earlier. for - endometriosis. we were hearing from a woman earlier. for somej from a woman earlier. for some women, these conditions are not benign because some of them are forced to give up work because

they are suffering. do you agree with the royal college of surgeons that women's health is less of a priority when it comes to budgets by governments? t comes to budgets by covernments? _, , , comes to budgets by covernments? , , ., governments? i completely agree because if you _ governments? i completely agree because if you look _ governments? i completely agree because if you look at _ because if you look at cardiovascular disease and screening for men, it has been on the top of priorities, but now we have realised that although we have less cardiovascular disease, when it happens to women, it is killing women more than men. we need to prioritise the health of the nation. the health of women is most important, because if they are healthy, they will look after the family of their parents. they are much more beneficial, i would say, in some ways, if not more than men mother at least at the same level as men. idr mother at least at the same level as men.— mother at least at the same level as men. , ,, ., �* ,~' level as men. dr shohreh beski, thank yon _

we just want to bring you some breaking news. we are following developments over the past few hours, which is that the united states has given ukraine permission to use long—range missiles inside russia. reaction coming in from the polish president duda. his president biden's decision to allow ukraine to allow long—range arms may decisive moment in ukraine? war. we have also heard from the kremlin, saying this will fuel tensions in ukraine. more on that on bbc news. the parents of a british teenager who took his own life after falling victim to sextortion have made a direct appeal to criminals in nigeria, calling on them to stop targeting children. murray dowey was only sixteen when he ended his life last year. 0ur correspondent angus crawford has been to meet his parents. from these streets, criminals target british children — trick, bully, blackmailthem.

for kids, once you get those pictures from their social media handles, you are good to go. children like murray dowey. he was a great kid and he went up to his room and he was absolutely fine. and, you know, we found him dead the next morning. and we had no chance to intervene, to notice there was something wrong and try and help and fix it. it happened so quickly. murray wasjust i6. tricked by someone posing as a girl online, he sent them compromising pictures. then he was told to pay up or they'd be sent to friends and family. i don't know if they have any humanity to stop and think about what they're actually doing, but you know, you have to question how would they feel if it was their child or their little brother or theirfriend? you can't put into words how painful it is and how devastating, and how that gap, that murray gap is just going to be there for

the rest of our lives. and i suppose all for the sake of a few quid. a few quid that ends up here in nigeria. you use a profile of- a beautiful girl and he will keep imagining, wow, this is my girlfriend. l well, the painful part - of it is that they will never want to tell anyone - when this is happening. this man isn't the one who blackmailed murray, but he's done it to others. it took our bbc colleagues in lagos months to persuade him to talk. i don't have anything tojustify that, - that what i'm doing. i know that it's bad, but ijust call it - survival of the fittest. you're terrorising children. so we play him a message from scotland. you've ended murray's life. you know, he didn't deserve to die in the way he did. and it breaks my heart to think what his last few moments

or hours of getting relentless messages and threats and the terror he must have felt and the panic. that's one of the hardest things to think, what his last sort of few moments or hours in life were like, because of you. to be honest, i am almost. crying, like, i feel very bad. these are the suspected internet fraudsters. an arrest operation. more than 100 suspected scammers in one raid. police are trying to break the gangs, but seem overwhelmed. there's loads of things i feel guilty and i wish i had done, but... i don't think we could have done anything different, sweetheart, i really don't. but roz and mark's anger isn't only aimed at the people committing this crime. i just don't think as adults, we have any comprehension of what children are actually doing. they also blame the tech platforms, who they say aren't doing enough to stop it. social media companies could do so much more, and the reason they don't do so much more is money.

it will stop them making more billions than they're making. they make big headlines about caring and trying to stop it. it's just, they need to put their money where their mouth is. the technologies are there for them to stop so many of these crimes to be perpetrated, so much of the harm being shown and then forced onto kids through algorithms. but they don't, you know, they don't care because all they care about is profit. how have we got to this point where somebody making some money for shareholders is more important than children dying? you know, itjust... it's ludicrous. roz and mark, speaking out in murray's name to keep other young people safe. everything in life passes. there's nothing that is worth taking your own life for. so if something happens to you, put that phone down and go and get somebody you trust and tell them it's happened. and don't be ashamed of what you've done. thousands of children are sharing images

and what have you. it's happened. phone down. go and talk to somebody about it and it. it won't be the end of the world. it really won't be the end of the world. um, yeah, we can't have this happening to more children, like what happened to murray. plans to clamp down on large companies making excessive profits from children's homes in england are being set out by the government today. it's part of a major overhaul of the children's social care system. 0ur social affairs editor, alison holt has this report. the reforms announced today are wide ranging. they include a challenge to the excessive profits made by some big companies running children's homes. they'll be required to share financial details, or face a new law to limit the money they make. the provision of children's homes and foster care has not been able to keep up with demand. and we also have the reality

that the changing and complexities of children and young people, the needs that they're presenting, the sector needs to evolve to be able to accommodate those needs. unfortunately, it's not been able to keep pace with it. in england, there are currently 83,500 children in council care. that's the highest number ever. local authorities say 1500 of those children are in placements that each cost more than half a million pounds a year. those young people will have a range of very complex needs, but a 2022 report suggested the 15 largest care home providers made annual average profits of 23%. 0ther proposals being announced today would give families more involvement in decisions when a child is taken into care, and provide more support for those leaving care. the actor sonya nisa told breakfast last month how on her own she felt as she left care.

an actor told bbc breakfast last month how she felt upon leaving care. essentially leaving care, when you are 18, you are done and you're aware you're done and you know that there's nothing else for you. and it is terrifying. the government says it wants to rebalance the system to provide families with support much earlier. the question from councils and others is, will they get the financial help needed to make those changes? alison holt, bbc news. speaking on bbc breakfast, the secretary of state for education and ministerfor women and equalities, bridget phillipson, says reforms are necessary to curb children's care homes making excessive profits. it is shocking and it's because we've not been supporting families enough at the earliest possible point before things start to escalate. that's why what i'm setting up today is the biggest reform of children's social care for a generation, to make sure that we break this cycle of crisis that we've seen over the last decade because too many children are ending up in children's social care when, with the right level of support and families,

we could do more to stop that happening in the first place. but alongside that, where it's not possible for children to remain with their family or with wider family networks, we will take action on the excess profiteering we've seen from private providers. 20% to 30% profits, and we're talking about some of the most vulnerable children in our society. i'm calling time on that. we will bring in a financial oversight system to tackle it and if providers don't respond, we will cap their profits. as i say, the 0ns, for non—financial services, have a similar figure of 8.8%.

here we're talking 20—30%. what i'm saying to providers is that we will have better oversight of what they're doing.

we will also crack down on the unsuitable placements that are delivering terrible outcomes for children. if they don't respond, if they don't bring down their costs, we will legislate to bring in a cap on those profits. the national lottery has transformed many lives in the uk since it began in november 1994. as it prepares to celebrate 30 years since the first ever draw took place, our reporterjayne mccubbin has been taking a look back at the winners, losers and how it's changed the uk. the first tickets were sold this morning at £1 apiece. the first winners will be declared on bbc one at 7:00 next saturday. three, two, one! 30 years ago tomorrow, it all began. i'm hoping to be the first millionairess. but the launch of the national lottery wasn't just about winning. have a look at all that money there.

want to know the impact of the lottery as it approaches its 30th anniversary? let's start with dame sarah storey, who remembers a time when 0lympians and paralympians had to fund their own success stories. back before the national lottery sports funding programme, athletes had very understanding bosses. some people were just on the dole, as it was called back then, just trying to find the rightjob that would help them balance their sport. and i think careers were a lot shorter as well. two years after her gold medal journey began in barcelona, the national lottery gave athletes a grant towards living expenses for the very first time. four decades on, dame sarah storey is still winning. when the lottery came along, it was absolutely ground—breaking for us. right now, an exhibition in london's national portrait gallery shows more of that impact. around £50 billion worth of impact in every walk of life. if you look at my particular

example, i went out to try and make a film that everyone said was impossible. i wanted to make a film about women and football, because they were just absent in mainstream society, and everyone laughed at me and said, "that's going to never work." no more football! i want you to learn full punjabi dinner, meat and vegetarian. but dad! but with national lottery funding in 2002, gurinder chadha made the movie bend it like beckham. fast forward two decades... and now look, we're the european champions. girls, young women all over the country are playing football and aspiring to win the world cup one day. that's a game changing moment. the national lottery has invested around £50 billion in good causes over the last three decades. around 5% less is invested today than at its birth, but it is still going strong

and it is still changing lives. and release the balls! jayne mccubbin, bbc news. high standards and immaculate grooming have always been associated with cabin crew but their uniforms have come a long way since the formality of the 1940s. a new exhibition in bristol, called fashion of flight, has been exploring the many changes over the years. 0ur reporter alastair mckee went along to have a look. the evolution of the cabin crew dress reflects a journey through a very different cultural age, when air travel was exciting and cabin crew its brand icons. when the british airlines start using jumbo jets next may, the glamour girls who fly in them will charm their 340 passengers with a complete new wardrobe designed by london couturier clive. i guess you can see,

sort of starting in the 1950s, itjust looks like a sort of military uniform? that's right. i mean, they literally were military uniforms when they first started. um, and you can see, i mean, this is a slightly later version of the original design from the �*50s, and it's starting to soften, get a little bit less military. you're starting to lose the belt and the tie, but you've still got a very military hat, obviously. so this one has got my favourite item as part of the uniform, which is this fantastic red coat. yeah, it's amazing. so this is the red riding hood uniform. i can see why. peak 1960s. and it's got this lovely hooded coat with a removable hood. and ijust think it's so striking and the coat looks so comfortable and cool, even now. we've sort of swerved away from the military and it is very fashion forward. this one really stands out. what's the story here? so i mean, this one is very different from anything else.

this was specifically designed for the cabin crew to put on sort of towards the end of a flight, if you were going to the caribbean. it's made of paper. it's designed to be one use only. you slip it on, you wear it once, you throw it away. and i guess it must have been a bit of a fire risk as well? i mean, i have heard stories that passengers, after a few, used to try and set them on fire. it's certainly possible. i mean, you can imagine, like i said, people are quite rowdy towards the end of the flight, getting ready for their holiday, and someone comes out in a paper dress, goodness knows what would happen. as the 1960s gave way to the �*70s and �*80s, a golden age came to an end. cabin crew clothing became practical, but also mundane, just like air travel itself. christmas isn't too far away, but some people are already getting into the spirit. these competitors have been taking part in a christmas tree— throwing challenge in the south

of england, with entrants throwing a six—foot norway spruce as far as possible. the men's title was won by daniel davey, who threw his tree 11.1 metres. now it's time for a look at the weather with elizabeth rizzini. hello there. a blast of winter expected across the uk as we head through this week, it's going to be turning a lot colder. already a severe frost this morning across parts of scotland and some freezing fog patches for northwest england too. the risk of further snow and ice tonight and then overnight frost as we head through the rest of the week. but this is where the milder air is still hanging on today across the far south wales and into southern england. a lot colder though further north, those patches of freezing fog slow to lift and clear, some sunshine turning hazier as this

cloud and rain tends to spread its way further northwards and eastwards, and still some more wintry showers piling into the far north of scotland too. some of this rain turning to sleet and even some snow over the hills of northern ireland later on through the day, and quite the range in temperatures — colder further north, but a lot milder still further south. but as that rain bumps into colder air overnight tonight, this is when we're going to see the snow risk. now, we're likely to see some snow for a time across northern ireland, particularly over the higher ground into north wales and into northern england too. over the pennines, there could be as much as 5cm to 10cm of snow, more snow than that, perhaps, for some of the higher trans—pennine routes, and even into the north midlands, perhaps into parts of lincolnshire as well. a good dusting of snow, a good few centimetres always possible, but a lot of uncertainty on the northern and the southern extent of that wintry weather. it will be followed on by some icy stretches, so take care if out and about tomorrow morning. some treacherous driving conditions out there. now, as the low clears away, then we could see a little bit of a wintry mix, perhaps, across parts of east anglia at times, and into the far south and the east of england, especially over the higher ground. but towards the south, most of

that will be falling as rain. but that clears away. it's a day of sunny spells, but also some wintry showers, particularly for north sea facing coasts where it's staying very windy through the day, so you have to factor in a bit of wind chill into these temperatures. it will feel colder than this still. and as we head through tuesday night into wednesday, well, the winds will lighten so a widespread frost to start off wednesday morning, we're all into that colder feeling air. still some more wintry showers moving into northern scotland down through irish sea coast. maybe some wintry showers too, for north sea facing coasts. these will be the days highest temperatures, just low single figures for many of us. and that cold, wintry weather is set to last as we head through the rest of the working week. so very chilly indeed. bye— bye.

live from london. this is bbc news. the kremlin warns president biden is throwing "oil on fire" by giving the green light for ukraine to strike inside russia with us—supplied missiles. the british prime minister and china's president are set to meet at the g20 summit in brazil. it's the first high—level meeting in more than six years between the two countries. an international manhunt is under way to find the husband of a murdered woman

found in the boot of a car in london. and we find out what life is like in lahore, as a dangerous smog engulfs parts of pakistan and india. our people are born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust on them? hollywood blockbuster wicked premieres in london. we look ahead to the launch. hello, thank you forjoining us. i'm catherine vieira hunger. —— and catherine byaruhanga. the kremlin has reacted

to the united states allowing ukraine to use long—range missiles to strike targets in russia, accusing president biden of fuelling tensions. it's also warning the move could escalate the conflict. the decision by the outgoing us president is a major policy shift. it means ukraine can now use army tactical missile systems, known as atacms, to defend its forces in russia's kursk region, on ukraine's north—east border. russian president vladimir putin previously warned the west that he would consider such a move