Exclusive: Health secretary’s pledges in doubt as analysis shows health service will not deliver key improvements

The NHS is set to miss key targets to shorten waiting times for help at A&E, cancer care and planned hospital treatment, leaving millions of patients facing persistently long delays.

The health service in England will not deliver a series of milestone improvements in its performance that ministers demanded it achieve by the time the fiscal year ends on Tuesday, a Guardian analysis of the NHS’s most recent data has found.

The number of people forced to wait more than 13 weeks for a test – well over the six-week supposed maximum – has risen to 139,652, the highest number since January 2024.

Based on its recent growth, the diagnostic waiting list will hit 2 million by September next year.

While NHS trusts are delivering large volumes of diagnostic tests, the waiting list for them is still growing.

The US health secretary says he is a big fan of peptides. Many are promising drugs, but the only way to know their utility is proper clinical trials

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, is a chaotic person, but his Make America Healthy Again (Maha) agenda tends to follow a predictable logic. Large-scale, mandatory public health interventions – such as childhood vaccine requirements – are generally treated with suspicion and undermined. Personal choice – to drink unpasteurised milk, for example – is to be unleashed, and unburdened by regulation. In theory, Maha promises freedom and autonomy; in practice it tends to replace the precautionary principle with exhortations for individuals to “do your own research”, and sidelines scientific expertise in favour of “wellness” hucksters and profiteers.

This is particularly obvious in Mr Kennedy’s recent claims that he will open up the sale of “about 14” injectable peptide drugs to the public. Peptides are molecules often used by our bodies for sending signals – so there are many kinds of peptides, and the safety and efficacy of each is a separate question. The widely used “weight-loss jab” drugs are peptides but so are the toxic compounds in snake venom that dissolve living cells. Mr Kennedy is likely to be referring to a subset of 17 peptides restricted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023 due to “potential significant safety risks”. None have been proved to be safe or effective for human use, so there is no clear argument for reversing the decision.

Benefits of ping-pong | The Waterboys | Ode to the moon | A puckle of gravel | John Moore-Brabazon

Regarding your article (A moment that changed me: I thought my Parkinson’s was the end of my life, but dancing changed everything, 25 March), people with Parkinson’s might like to take up table tennis. I set up a Parkinson’s table tennis project in Newcastle in 2025 and we have evidence showing improvements in coordination, footwork, social skills and speech. One member who had to hold on to the table can now play freehand without falling.
Philip Cheung
Newcastle upon Tyne

• How can you have a list of the best songs about the moon (You saw me standin’ alone: songs about the moon – ranked!, 26 March) without including The Waterboys’ great The Whole of the Moon?
Chris Evans
Earby, Lancashire

Shift seen away from from traveling to states with legal abortion in favor of telehealth and mail-order pills

The abortion rate is holding steady in the US despite total and partial bans in some states – largely because of travel across state lines and a significant increase in telehealth appointments, a new report says.

US regulatory officials are weighing changes to the ways mifepristone, an abortion medication, may be dispensed, but they have reportedly pushed their review until after the midterm elections, given the widespread support for abortion across the US.

Anatomy of one of least studied human organs could improve outcomes for women who have pelvic surgery

Almost 30 years after the intricate web of nerves inside the penis was plotted out, the same mapping has finally been completed for one of the least-studied organs in the human body – the clitoris.

As well as revealing the extent of the nerves that are crucial to orgasms, the work shows that some of what medics are learning about the anatomy of the clitoris is wrong, and could help prevent women who have pelvic operations from ending up with poorer sexual function.

Emigrating to be with your partner sounds wildly romantic, but what happens when the person is right and the place very much isn’t?

I met my wife in Queensland in 2001. She’s from Bern, but was in Australia to study marine science. She needed help collecting fish for her project, and had heard that I was handy with a spear gun. We hit it off straight away, and began our romance on semi‑deserted islands near the Great Barrier Reef.

We went on to make a life together. My wife liked Australia and eventually got citizenship, but after we had our first son she wanted to be near her family.

Ban on junk food adverts has cut advertising spend and prompted a debate over the policy’s impact

The UK will have its first Easter without the traditional barrage of TV ads for chocolate eggs and hot cross buns as the ban on junk food advertising makes the sweetest tradition of the year a sugar-free viewing experience.

New regulations, which came into force at the beginning of the year, prohibit products high in fat, sugar and salt from appearing in TV ads before 9pm, as part of efforts to tackle rising childhood obesity.

Examining the packaging is key to avoiding illegal and potentially harmful devices, as millions are seized each year

You buy a vape from a shop on the high street. Nothing looks unusual but after charging the unit and using it for a few days, you notice it is getting hotter and hotter.

The vape is a fake and one of the thousands on sale illegally in shops around the UK. By not installing a simple circuit to prevent overheating, the manufacturers have saved a couple of pence but risk it catching fire.

Raw Farm was also linked to 2024 salmonella outbreak that sickened 165 people and deaths of two cats from bird flu

A California raw milk dairy that was previously linked to a fatal outbreak of bird flu in cats has now been linked to an E coli outbreak involving cheddar cheese, affecting nine people in three states.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in an alert that more than half of the people sickened so far are children under age five. Three people have been hospitalized after contracting a dangerous strain of E coli – O157:H7 – with one developing hemolytic uremic syndrome, a condition that can lead to kidney failure.

This pricey infrared therapy mat claims to help mood, sleep and muscle recovery. It felt more like a glorified heating pad

• Plastic-free cutting boards and $17 bike lights: 11 things you loved in March

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I have a $1,400 mat stashed under my pink velvet couch.

It’s my roommate’s PEMF and infrared therapy mat, and yes, it costs nearly as much as my monthly rent. Measuring 6ft in length, made of vegan leather, layered with bright-blue amethyst and obsidian crystals and weighing as much as a Siberian husky, the HigherDose mat makes my basic yoga mat feel like a flimsy slab of cardboard.

Dr Louise Goddard-Crawley emphasises the importance of being able to tolerate discomfort, both in yourself and in someone else, while Claire Nixon reflects on her own experience

Perhaps one of the reasons that conversations about infertility are so difficult is that people are often encountering the experience for the first time without a shared language (Infertility: at a time when we need the right words, some are unable to find them, 21 March). In many ways, what people need is not just support, but a vocabulary for what they are going through. When someone loses a loved one, we have a go-to phrase: “I’m so sorry for your loss”. It’s not enough, but it’s something. With infertility, we don’t even have that.

When people don’t know what to say, they often reach for reassurance or positivity. This is usually well-intentioned, but it tends to reflect the discomfort of the person speaking rather than the needs of the person going through it.

Campaigner criticises ‘shortsighted and self-defeating’ decision and says it increases risk to the UK public

The polio virus was detected in London sewage for the second time this year, days before ministers withdrew funding for global polio eradication efforts.

Its detection reveals the spending cuts to be “shortsighted and self-defeating”, campaigners said. Polio is an extremely infectious viral disease, which typically affects young children under five. It can cause paralysis by damaging nerves in the spine and base of the brain, and can be life-threatening if it affects muscles used for breathing.

Trump has yet to nominate a permanent CDC director and the Senate confirmation of his pick for top doctor is in limbo

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The Trump administration’s “Make America healthy again” (Maha) agenda appears to be stalled as two of the government’s most influential public health positions sit empty.

Donald Trump has yet to nominate a permanent director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leaving an agency that has been plagued by turmoil for the past year without a leader. At the same time, the president’s controversial pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, remains in limbo as her nomination stalls in the Senate.

BMA’s decision to withdraw from talks with government and NHS chiefs has sparked a war of words

NHS bosses have accused resident doctors of seeking to cause “maximum harm” to patients by striking for six days next month over pay and jobs.

Wes Streeting has given resident – formerly junior – doctors in England until 2 April to reconsider their rejection on Wednesday of his “generous” offer to end the dispute. It would have given them £700m in extra pay over the next three years.

Wes Streeting pronounced the UK’s health system ‘broken’. An upbeat survey does not mean that it is fixed

For the government, news that public satisfaction with the NHS has increased for the first time since 2019 came as a huge relief. After 20 difficult months in office, ministers can point to proof that one public service at least is getting better, in spite of doctors’ strikes. The annual survey also found that the proportion of people who are dissatisfied with social care provided by councils has fallen, although the change here is less marked.

Given the low base from which this boost has been measured, and ongoing problems in multiple areas, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, was careful to temper his evident glee in a speech on Wednesday, with pledges of further improvement. Since the NHS is widely regarded as his party’s proudest achievement, and the UK’s most cherished institution, a figure of 26% declaring themselves to be satisfied, compared with 51% who are dissatisfied, sounds more like a cause for concern than celebration.

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The comments were part of a broader address in which he condemned Nato allies

Yesterday the Conservative party said that it wanted to ban political parties from distributing campaign literature in a foreign language. Announcing a plan to propose an amendement to the representation of the people bill to make this law, the shadow communities minister Paul Holmes said:

Campaigning in a foreign language as the Greens did in Gorton and Denton only fosters greater division. A coherent national culture relies on shared values, and an inclusive electoral process relies on a common tongue.

I think it’s for political parties to choose how they campaign and communicate with British voters. If they’re using British money that is funding their campaigns and they’re speaking to people who have the right to vote, then why would you not show those voters the respect of communication?

What fuels division is Nick Timothy standing up and singling out Muslim forms of worship for a ban when he’s not applying that to forms of worship that other religions are talking about.

It just doesn’t compute, does it? I worked in Number 10. Briefly, I had a Number 10 phone. There was a paranoia about devices like that falling into other people’s hands.

And so whether it was the Met Police, whether it was Morgan McSweeney, and what sounds like pretty evasive set of reporting, even when you look at that transcript, or whether it was the Number 10 security team following up something that at the time they could not have been sure had not been taken by a state actor, a phone with all sorts of government secrets potentially in it, that’s precisely why people in government have two separate phones.

I don’t believe McSwindle had his iPhone stolen

Honest believe, Matt. It’s smacks of the liar Johnson defence of ‘lost all my WhatsApp messages’. We mustn’t take the public for fools. And I am afraid this smacks of too convenient by far. I won’t do it. I will say what I actually think. And I don’t believe it. End of!

I believe the report was made. McSwindle didn’t mention that he was the chief of staff to the PM. A significant omission of he’d wanted the police to prioritise the offence.

Readers respond to an article on having to care for parents if you had a complicated relationship with them

Stephanie Woods is right to draw attention to how hard it can be to care for someone who didn’t care for you (The impossible task of caring for ageing parents who did not care for you, 20 March). While some carers find it a privilege to look after someone they’ve had a loving relationship with, others feel trapped by a sense of duty, or by societal expectations, to care for someone they aren’t close to or who doesn’t value them.

Changes to how social care support is funded and provided cannot come soon enough for anyone who feels that they have no choice but to care. In reality, if unpaid family carers stopped providing daily practical and emotional support to people living with dementia, there would be chaos. There are simply not enough professional home-based carers, care home places, or hospital beds, to manage the consequences of thousands of vulnerable people left alone and at risk in their own homes.

Ejaculation v sleep | Night-time stress | Brabazon legacy | Learning from mistakes | Pint or pony of porter

I was struck by two adjacent headlines: “More frequent ejaculations may boost men’s fertility” and “Extra 11 minutes’ sleep each night can reduce heart attack risk”. What a terrible dilemma.
Prof Gareth Williams
Rockhampton, Gloucestershire

• Given the impact of stress on the risk of heart attacks, I wonder how the worry about not sleeping for an extra 11 minutes is going to help me.
Richard Barnard
Wivenhoe, Essex

One minute, Dennis Biesma was playing with a chatbot; the next, he was convinced his sentient friend would make him a fortune. He’s just one of many people who lost control after an AI encounter

Towards the end of 2024, Dennis Biesma decided to check out ChatGPT. The Amsterdam-based IT consultant had just ended a contract early. “I had some time, so I thought: let’s have a look at this new technology everyone is talking about,” he says. “Very quickly, I became fascinated.”

Biesma has asked himself why he was vulnerable to what came next. He was nearing 50. His adult daughter had left home, his wife went out to work and, in his field, the shift since Covid to working from home had left him feeling “a little isolated”. He smoked a bit of cannabis some evenings to “chill”, but had done so for years with no ill effects. He had never experienced a mental illness. Yet within months of downloading ChatGPT, Biesma had sunk €100,000 (about £83,000) into a business startup based on a delusion, been hospitalised three times and tried to kill himself.

Rule change follows high court challenge brought by two doctors prevented from working in specialist fields

Doctors who have been prevented from working in the NHS while they wait for asylum decisions are celebrating after the Home Office agreed to lift the ban. The changes come into force on Thursday.

The changes to the immigration rules follow a high court challenge by two specialist doctors who had the relevant qualifications to work for the NHS but were prevented from taking up work. Doctors who have a break in their practice can quickly become deskilled. Until now, the ban has remained in place despite shortages of doctors and other healthcare professionals in some parts of the NHS.