Nearly 1,000 pharmacies in England closed since 2017, with poorer areas more affected

Exclusive: Millions more GP appointments potentially created as a result of closures

Almost 1,000 pharmacies in England have closed since 2017, potentially leading to millions of extra GP appointments, the Guardian can exclusively reveal.

There are more than 11,000 pharmacies in England. Guardian analysis of the official register of these chemists has found that parts of the country have lost more than one in five pharmacies in the last six years, with poorer areas experiencing proportionally more closures.

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More than half of England’s army veterans have health problems – report

Survey finds many ex-military personnel fear being misunderstood and are reluctant to seek professional help

More than half of England’s army veterans have experienced mental or physical health issues since returning to civilian life, and some are reluctant to share their experiences, a survey has revealed.

The survey of 4,910 veterans, commissioned jointly by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA), found that 55% have experienced a health issue potentially related to their service since leaving the armed forces. Over 80% of respondents said their condition had got worse since returning to civilian life.

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Russia suspected of jamming GPS signal on aircraft carrying Grant Shapps

RAF jet was taking defence secretary back to UK from Poland, and flying near Russian exclave of Kaliningrad

Russia is believed to have jammed the satellite signal on an RAF aircraft carrying Grant Shapps back from Poland, according to government sources.

Defence sources said there was no danger to Shapps, who was travelling back to the UK, though they called it a “wildly irresponsible” act of electronic warfare.

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UK politics: Sunak refuses to say how abolition of national insurance would be funded – as it happened

PM says ‘people trust me on these things’ and refuses to be drawn on whether government would forgo entire £46bn raised from measure

Keir Starmer has accused Jeremy Hunt of repeating the budget mistakes made by Liz Truss during her disastrous premiership.

In comments on the budget during a visit to a building site this morning, Starmer focused on Hunt’s proposal to abolish employees’ national insurance over time, saying that this was a bigger unfunded tax promise than those in Truss’s mini-budget. (See 9.28am.)

How humiliating was that for the government yesterday?

We’ve argued for years that they should get rid of the non-dom tax status, they’ve resisted that. And now, completely out of ideas, the only decent policy they’ve got is the one that they’ve lifted from us.

Nothing that Jeremy Hunt did yesterday, nor anything the OBR said, changes anything very significantly. Which is a shame. Because that means we are still:

-heading for a parliament in which people will on average be worse off at the end than at the start,

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Seeing same GP ‘improves patient health and cuts workload of doctors’

Study analysing data from 10m consultations in England also says practice can free up millions of appointments

Seeing the same GP improves patients’ health, reduces doctors’ workloads and could free up millions of appointments, according to the largest study of its kind.

Primary care is under enormous strain, with patients struggling to book consultations, GPs quitting or retiring early, and financial pressures causing some practices to close. Four-week waits hit a record high in 2023, with 17.6m appointments taking place at least 28 days after being booked in England last year.

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Rate of GPs bulk billing all patients in Australia drops to below one in four, data reveals

Cleanbill report reveals national rate of bulk billing dropped 11% last year to 23.6%, with 514 clinics removing the service

Fewer than one in four Australian general practices provide bulk billing to all patients, with more than 500 clinics switching to private billing in the past year, according to a new report.

Online healthcare directory Cleanbill on Monday released its Blue Report providing data on the rates of bulk billing – where the full cost of a consultation is paid for by Medicare without any additional gap fees – across 6,818 practices.

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New menopause therapy guidance will harm women’s health, say campaigners

Nice guidelines for GPs ‘placing CBT on a par with HRT’ are criticised as ‘patronising’ and ‘scaremongering’

New official guidance on treating menopause will harm women’s health, experts, MPs and campaigners have warned.

Last month, new draft guidelines to GPs from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said that women experiencing hot flushes, night sweats, depression and sleep problems could be offered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) “alongside or as an alternative to” hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help reduce their menopause symptoms.

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Experts call for fewer antidepressants to be prescribed in UK

Open letter to government from experts and politicians says rising usage ‘is a clear example of over-medicalisation’

Medical experts and politicians have called for the amount of antidepressants being prescribed to people across the UK to be reduced in an open letter to the government.

The letter coincides with the launch of the all-party parliamentary group Beyond Pills, which aims to reduce what it calls the UK healthcare system’s over-reliance on prescription medication.

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Nice calls for routine use of at-home faeces tests for bowel cancer screening

Hopes guidance could help diagnose colorectal cancer faster and cut NHS waiting times for colonoscopies

At-home faeces tests could spare tens of thousands of people in England and Wales from having to undergo invasive procedures to rule out bowel cancer.

It is hoped the move could help diagnose colorectal cancer faster and cut NHS waiting times by reducing the need to refer people for a colonoscopy.

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Khan dismisses Sunak’s attack on his housebuilding record in London as ‘desperate nonsense’ – UK politics live

Mayor of London hits back at prime minister over ‘pathetic gesture politics’

Rishi Sunak has failed to give his full backing to Sir Howard Davies, chairman of NatWest, in interviews this morning, PA Media reports.

PA says that Sunak did not back calls for the resignation of Davies in a pooled interview this morning – but also that Sunak would not say whether he had confidence in him.

What I said right at the start of this was that it wasn’t right for people to be deprived of basic services because of banking, because of their views.

This isn’t about any one individual, it’s about values – do you believe in free speech and not to be discriminated against because of your legally held views?

As a result of this policy, a dozen classrooms of children, including some of the most traumatised and vulnerable children in the world, have gone missing and, sickeningly for us, 50 children are still missing from the hotel used in Brighton and Hove.

Importantly the high court also makes clear that the home secretary already has the power to require local authorities across the country to take children into foster care via a statutory rota system called the national transfer scheme.

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Patients paying £550 an hour to see private GPs amid NHS frustrations

Signs that NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating surge in people resorting to private care

Patients are paying up to £550 an hour to see private GPs amid frustration at the delays many face getting an appointment with an NHS family doctor.

Growing numbers of paid-for GP services are opening up across Britain, in the latest sign of how the NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating a surge in people resorting to private healthcare.

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Warnings over NHS data privacy after ‘stalker’ doctor shares woman’s records

Exclusive: Victim speaks of feeling violated by hospital doctor incident that expert says is evidence of ‘systemic’ flaw in England

The confidentiality of NHS medical records has been thrown into doubt after a “stalker” hospital doctor accessed and shared highly sensitive information about a woman who had started dating her ex-boyfriend, despite not being involved in her care.

The victim was left in “fear, shock and horror” when she learned that the doctor had used her hospital’s medical records system to look at the woman’s GP records and read – and share – intimate details, known only to a few people, about her and her children.

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AI has better ‘bedside manner’ than some doctors, study finds

ChatGPT rated higher in quality and empathy of written advice, raising possibility of medical assistance role

ChatGPT appears to have a better ‘bedside manner’ than some doctors – at least when their written advice is rated for quality and empathy, a study has shown.

The findings highlight the potential for AI assistants to play a role in medicine, according to the authors of the work, who suggest such agents could help draft doctors’ communications with patients. “The opportunities for improving healthcare with AI are massive,” said Dr John Ayers, of the University of California San Diego.

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Keir Starmer says NHS is ‘broken’ and in jeopardy under Tories

Research by Labour shows 4.5 million in England went to A&E last year due to lack of GP appointments

Keir Starmer has said the NHS is “broken” and he believes the future of the health service is in jeopardy under the Conservatives.

The Labour leader accused the Tories of presiding over a “cycle of decline” as new research by his party shows that nearly a fifth of patients in England, which equates to 4.5 million people, went to A&E last year because they were unable to get a GP appointment.

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NHS staff shortages in England could exceed 570,000 by 2036, leaked document warns

Exclusive: workplace plan sent to ministers says deficit will rise rapidly from current 154,000 if current trends continue

The NHS in England needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis that could leave it short of 571,000 staff, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.

A long-awaited workforce plan produced by NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.

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UK GPs have the highest stress levels, finds survey of 10 countries’ doctors

Burnout, poor work/life balance and ‘unsustainable’ pressures are causing many NHS family practitioners to consider retirement

GPs in the UK have some of the highest stress levels and lowest job satisfaction among family doctors, a 10-country survey has found.

British GPs suffer from high levels of burnout, have a worse work/life balance and spend less time with patients during appointments than their peers in many other places.

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‘Not really relevant’: Rishi Sunak refuses to say if he uses private healthcare

PM urged to ‘come clean’ amid suggestions he is out of touch with millions who face long NHS waits

Rishi Sunak has refused to say whether he uses private healthcare amid suggestions he is out of touch with millions of ordinary people who face long waiting times to receive treatment on the NHS.

The prime minister said his own healthcare was “not really relevant” and was a “distraction” from his focus on making sure people across England receive high-quality NHS provision.

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People turning to DIY health treatment amid shortage of GP appointments

Lib Dems say face-to-face GP bookings ‘almost extinct’ in some areas as their survey shows a rise in self-prescribing

Almost one in four people have bought medicine online or at a pharmacy to treat their illness after failing to see a GP face to face, according to a UK survey underlining the rise of do-it-yourself treatment.

Nearly one in five (19%) have gone to A&E seeking urgent medical treatment for the same reason, the research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats shows.

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‘Like a horrific board game’: 33 hours inside an NHS in crisis

Crammed wards, burnt-out GPs, patients waiting hours for ambulances – the health service is at breaking point

Inside the dimly lit command centre at King’s College hospital, staff arriving for the first beds meeting of the day are greeted with a warning: the hospital is already under strain. “So, we are under pressure this morning,” the head of nursing, Naomi Hosking, informs colleagues stood around her in a semi-circle. No one registers surprise. “We’ve got a lot of patients in ED [emergency department] with little space to see new patients, so we need to get some early movement.”

It’s 8.32am and ED – maximum capacity 60 – is packed, with 61 patients inside. The oldest is 98; the youngest 30 days old. Later, that pressure will intensify: the number of ED patients – in beds, on trolleys or in chairs – will more than double to 137.

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Delays in seeing a GP mean millions will get diagnosis too late, says Labour

Serious illnesses among estimated 5m people in England who could not get an appointment in October may have been missed

Millions of people in England are struggling to get GP appointments and as a result some will not have serious medical conditions diagnosed until it is “too late”, Labour has warned.

The party has made new estimates based on the latest GP appointment figures for England with GP patient survey data.

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