Health Policy InsightHealthcare management online analysis and intelligence
Health Policy InsightChief medical officer for England urges people to set media cliches aside to focus on health benefits of physical activity
Culture war-based coverage of cycling based on stereotypes of middle-aged men in Lycra could harm the nation’s health because it shifts focus away from the people and communities who benefit from physical activity, Chris Whitty has said.
Speaking a day before the launch of the NHS’s 10-year-health plan, which is expected to focus heavily on prevention, the chief medical officer for England called on people to set aside media cliches and instead focus on “data which nobody can dispute”.
Continue reading...Review led to profound changes, some of which made young people feel unsupported, yet new clinics are opening
At the heart of the controversy about how to meet the needs of young people questioning their gender has been the huge rise in referrals to the Tavistock – previously the only dedicated clinic in England and Wales treating children with gender dysphoria.
The clinic was closed one month before the Cass review into youth gender identity services, commissioned by NHS England and led by the British paediatrician Hilary Cass, which found that children had been “let down” by the NHS amid a “toxic” public discourse.
Continue reading...Government wants to cut annual intake of non-UK doctors from 34% to under 10% as part of 10-year plan
Hospitals and GP practices in England will be told to slash the number of overseas-trained doctors and nurses they recruit under government plans for the NHS that will be published on Thursday.
Graduates of UK medical schools will be given priority as part of a drive to reduce the health service’s dependence on medics from abroad.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Experts say higher figure than past estimates should be wake-up call for ministers to tackle obesity
The cost of the UK’s epidemic of overweight and obesity has soared to £126bn a year, far higher than previous estimates, according to a study.
The bill includes the costs of NHS care (£12.6bn), the years people spend in poor health because of their weight (£71.4bn) and the damage to the economy (£31bn).
Continue reading...Cases of cervical cancer among older people rising globally as research finds over-65s more likely to have HPV infections than younger women
Routine cervical screening should be offered to women aged 65 and over as they are still at heightened risk of cancer from human papillomavirus (HPV), according to research.
Despite it being a preventable disease, there were about 660,000 cases of cervical cancer and 350,000 deaths from it worldwide in 2022, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Continue reading...Responding to an article on ear health, Marna Blundy says people need good hearing to stay socially connected
Your article about ear health (Get plugs and never remove wax at home, 24 June) didn’t reflect the huge impact on some people’s lives of the withdrawal of NHS earwax removal services in many areas.
Cornwall is one of the areas of the country where you now have to pay privately to have earwax safely removed. The cost of this can be considerable for those on limited incomes, which causes some to undertake dangerous procedures themselves to clear their wax, or go to an unregulated and possibly dangerous practitioner, or simply live with reduced hearing.
Continue reading...Rise in number of babies born to men over 60 a factor in small rise in birthrate, shows ONS data
An increase in babies born to fathers over 60 helped trigger the first increase in the number of births in England and Wales since 2021.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed there were 594,677 live births in 2024, up 0.6% from 2023.
Continue reading...Millions of Americans a year visit national parks and many leave their business anywhere. Contrary to popular belief, that deluge of poop is not going to decompose
Last year, I watched a man squat and relieve himself 30ft (9 metres) from me, holding on to his vehicle’s front wheel with one hand to steady himself. My dog and I were on our usual walk up the dirt road that bisects our old mining town, nestled just shy of 10,000ft (3km) in south-western Colorado.
It was a short walk from the house, and we were out just to get a little movement. Not to see one.
Continue reading...The US never signed on to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which experts say paves the way for cuts to federal funding for children’s health coverage
Every school year, midwife Lisa Isman meets dozens of eighth-graders for an annual tour of the clinic where she works. Students gather first in the office’s waiting room, where neon green couches, young adult romance novels and pamphlets on loneliness and sexual wellness greet them. On the tour of the Ungdomsmottagning – Swedish for “youth clinic” – the students in this suburb of Stockholm, Sweden, will take a peek at the different exam rooms, meet clinic counselors, and pay a visit to the clinic’s “kondomeria”, a cupboard decorated with condoms posed like action figures and stocked with a variety of brands.
The required school tour is an opportunity for Isman and her colleagues to explain to students that, from ages 12 to 22, this is their clinic. And “they can decide for themselves” whether to book an appointment, with or without their parents’ involvement, Isman says.
Continue reading...Health ombudsman says number of last-resort investigations into care in England up two-thirds in four years
The NHS has repeatedly failed in its diagnosis and care of stroke patients, England’s health ombudsman has said.
According to the World Stroke Association, more than 12 million people worldwide will have their first stroke this year and 6.5 million will die as a result. Strokes are one of the UK’s biggest killers, causing about 34,000 deaths a year, and the single biggest cause of severe disability.
Continue reading...Politicians pretend to want to address the problem, writes Stephen Smith; Jol Miskin says Labour should bite the bullet and raise taxes
Your article on health inequality (Britain’s ‘medieval’ health inequality is devastating NHS, experts say, 29 June) describes the laudable efforts of NHS agencies to tackle some of the acute health problems in poorer areas. However, the real problem is that the reason we have such disparities in health is that they are directly related to the gross disparities in wealth and income in this country.
As Prof Michael Marmot and many others have demonstrated, some of the most important factors in determining health are social and economic. It is all very well for the NHS to make efforts to actively address the effects of social and economic deprivation in poor areas, but this is managing symptoms rather than the cause.
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