In the last week Full Fact have looked into persistent absence from school and a claim about long waits in A&E by mental health patients 

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In the last week Full Fact has been looking into several claims around persistent absence in schools in England. This follows an interview with education minister Nick Gibb on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

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These included claims that “almost a third” of secondary school pupils missed “a big chunk” of school, that persistent absence had decreased slightly since the pandemic, and that pupils who missed at least one day during the first week of the school year were “something like 40% more likely” to become persistently absent.
FACT CHECKS


** A patient did not wait in A&E for 36 days ([link removed])
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Following a press release from the Labour party, PA Media and some newspapers including the Independent and MailOnline reported several alleged examples of extremely long hospital waits by mental health patients. These included one patient at the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh trust who supposedly waited in A&E for 36 days.

This is not correct. It is the result of an error in the data, which Labour obtained through Freedom of Information requests. The NHS trust told Full Fact that the patient visited A&E then left on the same day, before returning and being “discharged” the following month.

Following contact from Full Fact, Labour agreed that the information in its press release was wrong and said it had corrected it.

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** Flight tracking map doesn’t show chemtrail planes ([link removed])
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A post on Instagram with more than 2,000 likes shows a flight-tracking map of part of the UK covered in short, parallel flight paths. Text overlaid onto the image says “CONTRAILS OR CH3MTRAILS?”, while part of the caption says “UK 2023 Flight Patterns”.

The post (which has also been shared on Facebook) appears to suggest that the unusual-looking routes shared on the map are linked to so-called ‘chemtrails’, a conspiracy theory which claims that the white lines seen behind planes are actually chemicals being deliberately sprayed into the atmosphere.These white lines in the sky are actually contrails—water vapour produced by aeroplane engines freezes at high altitude, forming long thin lines of cloud.


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** Keir Starmer 2003 court case is not the reason asylum seekers get support ([link removed])
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A post on Facebook claims that Sir Keir Starmer took the government to court in 2003 to demand that “illegal immigrants” could receive hotel accommodation and benefit support.

It is true that Mr Starmer, before he was an MP and Leader of the Opposition, represented five asylum seekers as a barrister in a case against the government. However the 2003 case Mr Starmer was involved in did not enable all “illegal immigrants” to receive support.

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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* There are no official reports of an Ebola outbreak at Burning Man festival ([link removed])
* Bargain online offers at Wilko are fake ([link removed])
* Pasteurisation does not cause lactose intolerance ([link removed])

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