Health Policy InsightThe Royal College of Nursing and Unison are undertaking indicative ballots to assess members’ willingness to strike
A looming fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors could encourage other NHS staff including nurses to take industrial action over pay, health service bosses fear.
Resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, in England are threatening to stage stoppages until January in pursuit of their demand for a 29% pay rise, after 90% voted in favour in a ballot on a 55% turnout.
Continue reading...With waiting lists high and pay talks deadlocked, fresh round of industrial action could undermine Starmer’s health pledges
Patients left in pain and discomfort. Thousands of appointments and operations cancelled. Much of the reaction to the decision of resident (formerly junior) doctors in England to stage their third six-month series of strikes over pay in just 16 months has focused on the disruption to NHS services.
But their stoppages also threaten to pose serious problems – political, economic and reputational – for the government. For Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and inescapably Rachel Reeves, too, this is a situation replete with risk but without an obvious solution.
Continue reading...They can be red, inflamed and prone to infection – but experts say there are effective ways to manage the condition
There’s never a good time to have an ingrown toenail. But navigating spring and summer with one can be particularly difficult, with warmer weather calling for open-toe shoes and more exposure to the elements. Contact with dirt or the ocean can allow bacteria to enter the skin near an ingrown toenail, leading to infection, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
I should know: over the years, I’ve managed recurrent ingrown toenails, which occur when the edge of a nail grows into nearby skin, causing inflammation and pain. Twenty per cent of people who see a doctor for foot problems have the condition, according to the National Institute of Health.
Continue reading...Tech firm’s chief, Louis Mosley, dismisses fears that contract ‘threatens to undermine public trust in NHS data systems’
Palantir, a US data company that works with Israel’s defence ministry, has accused British doctors of choosing “ideology over patient interest” after they attacked the firm’s contract to process NHS data.
Louis Mosley, Palantir’s executive vice-president, hit back at the British Medical Association, which recently said the £330m deal to create a single platform for NHS data – ranging from patient data to bed availability – “threatens to undermine public trust in NHS data systems”.
Continue reading...A study has found that the reason some people hate working out is less to do with ‘laziness’ and more to do with other qualities altogether
Name: Gym personalities.
Age: Genetically hardwired since ancient times.
Continue reading...The seaside resort has become a byword for coastal deprivation but its youth say there’s a world of creativity bubbling under the surface
Photographs by Polly Braden
Young people in the UK: share your experiences of living in a coastal town
Michael knows exactly how he feels about his home town of Blackpool. “It’s just brilliant,” he says. Walking along the beachfront past people soaking up the sunshine on benches and kids playing in the sand overlooked by Blackpool Tower, he throws out his arms with a huge grin.
“For me, it has been an amazing place to grow up. I don’t understand why anyone would talk down their home town. If you feel shit about your town, you’re going to feel shit about yourself, right?”
Michael in the Sea Life aquarium, where he works part-time
Continue reading...One thing I’ve noticed is that as they grow older, people tend to care less about others’ opinions. Sometimes that’s liberating
I started learning about ageing and ageism – prejudice and discrimination on the basis of age – almost 20 years ago, as I entered my 50s. That’s when it hit me that this getting older thing was actually happening to me. I was soon barraged by advice on how to age well. Many concepts, like “active ageing”, were obvious. (Don’t be a couch potato.) Some, like “successful ageing”, were obnoxious. (In my opinion, if you wake up in the morning, you’re ageing successfully.) One, “ageing gracefully”, was intriguing.
Although I’ve written a whole book about ageism, I wasn’t sure I knew how to go about ageing gracefully. For starters, it didn’t seem as though I qualified. When I was speaking at a conference a few years ago, a woman in the elevator recognized my name from my badge. “Are you the one talking about ageing gracefully?” she asked. “If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve got the wrong person,” I blurted. My clumsiness, like my bluntness, is legendary.
Continue reading...ADHD UK says over-25s wanting assessment with Coventry and Warwickshire board have no choice but to pay privately
A charity supporting people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is preparing a legal challenge against a regional NHS board that has temporarily stopped accepting referrals for adults over 25.
Coventry and Warwickshire integrated care board said any new referrals for people over 25 would be paused from 21 May to reduce waiting lists for children.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of hospital appointments could be cancelled if BMA members vote for series of stoppages
Hospitals are bracing for a fresh round of strikes by resident doctors seeking a 29% pay rise, amid warnings that stoppages could lead to hundreds of thousands of appointments and operations being cancelled.
NHS leaders fear that a ballot of resident doctors, formerly junior doctors in England, which closes on Monday will produce a majority backing renewed industrial action.
Continue reading...They are suffering disproportionately and without help, say researchers, and unless they are given a voice, problems will continue to mount up
Young people living in the most deprived stretches of England’s coastline are three times more likely to be living with an undiagnosed mental health condition than their peers inland, according to new research.
This “coastal mental health gap” means that young people in these towns, which include areas of Tendring on the east coast and Blackpool and Liverpool to the west, are suffering disproportionately, often alone and with no help, said the researchers who conducted the study.
Continue reading...Cardiologist who empowered paramedics and the general public to restart hearts and save lives
If you had a cardiac arrest before the 1970s, an ambulance might arrive quickly, but almost all its crew could do was transport you to hospital, where your treatment would begin – if indeed you survived the journey. The cardiologist Douglas Chamberlain, who has died aged 94, realised that in order to start resuscitation in the vital five-minute window after the heart stopped beating, the ambulance crew needed the tools and skills to do it themselves.
Chamberlain’s initiative laid the foundations for the paramedic profession nationally and internationally. Working from a district general hospital in Brighton, he set up an intensive training programme for ambulance crews, equipped ambulances with defibrillators and electrocardiogram (ECG) machines, and demonstrated through a series of rigorously documented studies that the service saved lives. The only other city in the world where non-medical professionals were using defibrillators at the time was Seattle in the US.
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