Category Archives: Society

Beareaved parents face ‘harrowing’ delays for NHS postmorterms

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Shortage of specialist doctors means service is in crisis, says chair of Royal College of Pathologists committee

Bereaved parents are enduring “harrowing” delays of more than a year to find out why their child died because the NHS has too few specialist doctors to perform postmortems.

The shortage of paediatric and perinatal pathologists is revealed in a report by the Royal College of Pathologists published on Sunday. It warns that the situation is “dire”, services in some parts of the UK have “totally collapsed” and families are paying the price.

37% of consultant posts in the UK are lying vacant.

The UK has just 52 paediatric and perinatal consultants and 13 are due to retire in the next five years.

Just 3% of consultants think current staffing levels are enough to sustain their service.

Only 13 resident doctors are in training to become consultants in the specialty.

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Up to 50,000 nurses could quit UK over immigration plans, survey suggests

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Exclusive: union leaders say proposed changes are immoral and could threaten patient safety if there is staff exodus

Up to 50,000 nurses could quit the UK over the government’s immigration proposals, plunging the NHS into its biggest ever workforce crisis, research suggests.

Keir Starmer has vowed to curb net migration, with plans to force migrants to wait as long as 10 years to apply to settle in the UK instead of automatically gaining settled status after five years.

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New drug could be a breakthrough in treatment for killer TB, trial suggests

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Sorfequiline shows stronger action than existing treatments against illness that killed 1.23 million last year

A new treatment for tuberculosis could boost cure rates and shorten the time needed to treat the disease by months, trial results suggest.

Globally, an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB last year and 1.23 million died from it.

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Nestlé accused of ’risking health of babies for profit’ over added sugar in cereals sold in African countries

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Campaigners say the company is contributing to rising rates of childhood obesity, while the firm says it is helping to combat malnutrition

Nestlé is still adding sugar to most baby cereals sold across Africa, according to an investigation by campaigners who have accused the company of “putting the health of African babies at risk for profit”.

The food firm was accused of “double standards” over the researchers’ findings, which come at a time when rates of childhood obesity are rising on the continent, prompting calls for Nestlé to remove all added sugar from baby-food products.

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Two-thirds of nurses in UK work while unwell, says union

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Understaffing driving workers to ill health and discouraging them for taking leave, says Royal College of Nursing CEO

Nurses across the UK are working while unwell in understaffed hospitals, with stress as the leading cause of illness, according to research.

A survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) of more than 20,000 nursing staff found that 66% had worked when they should have been on sick leave, up from 49% in 2017.

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Nature not a blocker to housing growth, inquiry finds

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Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environment

Nature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.

Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.

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UK warned that 15% cut to health fund will force ‘impossible choices’ on Africa

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Advocates fear that other donors will follow Britain’s reduction to the Global Fund for Aids, TB and malaria

The UK is undermining its legacy in fighting infectious diseases including Aids and malaria by cutting money pledged to a leading global health fund, campaigners claim.

The 15% reduction in the contribution to the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced this week – in a year when the UK, alongside South Africa, is co-host of the fund’s replenishment drive – risks encouraging other countries to cut back commitments as well, advocates fear.

The Gates Foundation is a major private contributor to the Global Fund. The foundation also contributes to theguardian.org, which funds independent journalism at the Guardian

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David Lammy says 91 prisoners freed in error in England and Wales since April

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Justice secretary tells MPs as many as four may still be at large and blames previous governments’ cuts for mistakes

The justice secretary has revealed that 91 prisoners have been released by mistake in England and Wales since April, of whom as many four remain at large.

David Lammy gave details in a Commons statement of three mistakenly released prisoners the police are trying to trace. He said the Prison Service was also investigating a fourth inmate released in error last Monday who may still be at large.

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NHS staff who visit patients at home say St George’s flags can mean ‘no-go zones’

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Black and Asian staff left feeling ‘deliberately intimidated’, according to chief executive of one NHS trust

NHS staff who care for patients in their own homes fear some areas have become “no-go zones” for them because of the presence of St George’s flags, health leaders have said.

Black and Asian staff have been left feeling “deliberately intimidated” as a result of the flags that were put up in many parts of England during the summer, according to the chief executive of one NHS trust in England, who asked to remain anonymous.

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No link between paracetamol in pregnancy and autism or ADHD in children, review finds

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Wide-ranging review finds no convincing connection after Trump said women should ‘fight like hell’ to avoid painkiller

A wide-ranging review into paracetamol use by pregnant women has found no convincing link between the common painkiller and the chances of children being diagnosed with autism and ADHD.

Publication of the work was fast-tracked to provide prospective mothers and their doctors with reliable information after the Trump administration urged pregnant women to avoid paracetamol – also known as acetaminophen or Tylenol – claiming it was contributing to rising rates of autism.

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Bar Council calls for legal aid for all family court cases involving domestic abuse

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Only 15% of families are eligible for legal aid which has led to huge swathes of UK becoming ‘legal advice deserts’, body says

The Bar Council has called for all family court cases involving domestic abuse to be brought within the scope of legal aid for both parties, and for means testing to be scrapped for alleged victims and survivors of domestic abuse.

In a new policy paper, the body, which represents all 18,000 barristers in England and Wales, has set out a package of recommendations to improve the ability of the family justice system.

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Review to look at role of mental health issues in UK youth unemployment

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Former health secretary Alan Milburn’s review is exploring reasons for rising inactivity among young people

The role of mental health issues and disability in youth unemployment will be examined by the former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn as part of a review looking into rising inactivity among Britain’s young people.

Nearly a million people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training, often described with the acronym Neets. Milburn will look at ways to avoid people becoming trapped as Neets and the findings will be published in the summer.

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US to demand countries share data on ‘pathogens with epidemic potential’ in return for health aid

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Draft template seen by the Guardian has no reference to countries receiving benefits for sharing information, such as guaranteed access to medicines developed as a result

The US wants countries to agree to hand over information on bugs that could cause large-scale disease outbreaks in return for restoring aid to tackle health problems such as HIV and malaria, according to government documents.

The Trump administration is seeking new bilateral aid agreements with dozens of countries, after an abrupt withdrawal from existing arrangements at the start of this year. The agreements form part of a new America First Global Health Strategy announced in September.

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Jailed UK climate protesters facing conditions reserved for extremists on release

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Exclusive: Just Stop Oil activist was banned from attending gatherings, including meeting a friend in a cafe, without permission

Environmental protesters are being given licence conditions on release from jail that are supposed to be limited to extremism cases.

Ella Ward, 22, was banned from going to any meetings or gatherings, except for worship, without permission from her probation officer, although the Ministry of Justice dropped the condition after she brought a legal challenge.

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Toby Carvery owner urged to fund ‘life support’ for felled Enfield oak

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Sprinklers could save 500-year-old tree that had branches cut off without authorisation in April, says expert

The restaurant chain Toby Carvery is being urged to pay for life support for an ancient oak tree that its owner had chainsawed last spring to widespread public dismay.

Experts say the trunk of the 500-year-old tree, on the edge of a Toby Carvery car park in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, has shown signs of regrowth, despite its branches being sawn off by the restaurant’s contractors in April.

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Hit for six: why India’s Women’s Cricket World Cup win is victory for equality

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Sacrifices made to reach final – defying social stigma, lack of resources and juggling jobs between training – makes victory still more extraordinary

Growing up in rural India, Shafali Verma always knew she had a hunger to play cricket. But in her small town of Rohtak, in the north Indian state of Haryana, cricket was not a game for girls. Aged nine, desperate to play, she cut her hair short, entered a tournament disguised as her brother, and went on to win man of the match.

Verma’s determined father, Sanjeev, in the face of refusal from every cricket academy or training centre who would not accept his daughter, enrolled her as a boy. “Luckily, nobody noticed,” he recalled, as Verma made her debut for the national women’s team at 15 years old.

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Lammy says he was right not to discuss mistakenly freed prisoner at PMQs

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Justice secretary says he did not have ‘all the detail’ at the time and there is ‘mountain to climb’ on prisons crisis

David Lammy has said the government has “a mountain to climb” to tackle the prisons crisis and insisted he was “not equipped with all the detail” when questioned in parliament the previous day about a mistaken prisoner release.

After a fraudster mistakenly freed from prison handed himself in on Thursday, the justice secretary said he had been right not to provide details to MPs at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday about the release of a sex offender who remains at large.

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Lucy Powell says Labour must stand by promise not to raise key taxes

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New deputy leader also calls on government to lift two-child benefit cap urgently and in full

Labour should stand by its manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, its deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said in a challenge that will put pressure on Rachel Reeves.

With the Treasury examining whether to raise income tax to plug a £30bn fiscal hole, Powell said it was “really important we stand by the promises we were elected on and do what we said we would do”.

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Lancashire’s Reform-run council plans to close care homes and day centres

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Questions about potential conflict of interest as council’s cabinet member for social care owns private care company

Lancashire’s Reform-run council has been accused of “selling off the family silver” through its plans to save £4m a year by closing five council-run care homes and five day centres and moving residents into the private sector.

One of the care home residents, a 92-year-old woman, said she would leave only by “being forcibly removed or in a box”.

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NHS staff face ‘ugly’ racism akin to the 70s and 80s, says Wes Streeting

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Health secretary and NHS England chief warn of winter pressures and rising levels of abuse

An “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s has become worryingly commonplace again in modern Britain and NHS staff are bearing the brunt of it, Wes Streeting has warned.

Incidents of verbal and physical abuse based on people’s skin colour now happen so often that it has become “socially acceptable to be racist”, the health secretary said.

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