Healthcare delays in deprived communities mean greater need for expensive emergency treatment, research finds
People living in poverty find it harder to live a healthy life and face barriers to accessing timely treatment, new research suggests.
A report by the King’s Fund, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, finds that the delays people living in deprived communities face for healthcare mean they are more likely to need expensive emergency treatment.
Continue reading...PET scans can examine entire bowel before and during treatment, avoiding risks associated with taking tissue samples
Researchers in Glasgow have identified a new means of diagnosing and treating bowel cancer with imaging technology, avoiding the need for biopsies.
Biopsies require an invasive procedure with a number of health risks, such as infection, and are limited in what they can capture within a patient’s bowel.
Continue reading...Researchers at Nottingham Trent University hope device used at home will improve tracking of tumours
Scientists are developing a device that fits inside a bra and could monitor whether a breast cancer tumour is growing.
Researchers hope the device will provide a new non-invasive method of detecting tumour growth that patients can use “in the comfort of their own homes”.
Continue reading...Charities and education providers say young carers should be eligible for welfare when they study more than 21 hours a week
Young carers in England and Wales are being blocked from staying in education and going to college or university by benefit rules that unfairly penalise them, according to a coalition of charities and education providers.
The group of more than 200 organisations and representatives is lobbying ministers to exempt young carers – those aged 16 to 24 who often look after relatives – from the rule that makes them ineligible for the government’s carer’s allowance if they study for more than 21 hours a week.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Lack of online skills and access creates digital divide that amplifies other exclusions, says report
Almost half of UK families with children lack the online skills or access to devices, data and broadband required to participate in today’s digital society, research shows, with an expert saying this divide is an “amplifier of other exclusions”.
Research shared exclusively with the Guardian found that 45% of households with children did not meet the threshold. Families from low socioeconomic backgrounds in deprived areas and households outside London were among those who were less likely to meet it. Households from minority ethnic backgrounds and those with disabled parents were twice as likely to fall below it.
Continue reading...Long hours spent at desks and sofas leads to 21,000 deaths a year in the Netherlands from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer
The Dutch are perceived as a nation of healthy giants, leaping on their bikes to cycle energetically across flat lands. But new research suggests they are in fact the “sitting champions of Europe”, with a sedentary lifestyle that causes thousands of early deaths.
Health experts are calling for urgent action to stop so-called “chair-use disorder” spreading across western countries. A report by the research organisation TNO, published on Friday, found too much sitting costs the Netherlands €1.2bn (£1bn) annually and leads to 21,000 premature deaths a year from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. It is riskier, researchers found, to be a lawyer than a lorry driver.
Continue reading...Tories accused of deserting those without financial support, as proportion relying on help with deposits rises from 27% to 37% in a year
Rishi Sunak has been accused of “locking the door on home ownership” and entrenching inequality, amid evidence that tens of thousands more young house buyers have been forced to turn to the “bank of mum and dad” to secure a new home.
A crisis in housing affordability is again set to be a major election flashpoint, with the prime minister already admitting in recent months that the Conservatives needed to do more to address falling home ownership rates among the young. The party has failed in its manifesto pledge to build 300,000 houses a year.
Continue reading...After no reported cases of wild polio for 19 weeks, vaccination efforts boosted at last endemic spots in Pakistan and Afghanistan
The world is “tantalisingly close” to eradicating polio – with no confirmed cases of wild polio anywhere so far this year. But experts warn that vaccination efforts – and funding – must not falter if the world is to rid itself of a human infectious disease for the second time in history, after smallpox.
There have been no reported cases of wild polio infection in people for the last 19 weeks. Figures from the World Health Organization reveal that the last confirmed cases were on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan in October and September 2023 respectively; these are the last nations on Earth where polio is endemic.
Continue reading...Alex Chalk urges local council where racing festival takes place to stop granting licences to such venues
The presence of pop-up strip clubs at Cheltenham is making women feel “threatened and intimidated” at one of Britain’s biggest race festivals, the justice secretary has said.
Alex Chalk, the MP for Cheltenham, challenged the local council to stop granting licences to so-called sexual entertainment venues (SEVs).
Continue reading...Guildford Dragon will be able to benefit from tax breaks after becoming UK’s first charitable public interest news provider
A local news website conceived over a pint and named after a mythical creature has become the first in the UK to be given charitable status, providing a “glimmer of hope” to the future of local journalism.
The Guildford Dragon has become the UK’s first charitable public interest news provider after a six-month application process that experts hope will provide a lifeline to the decimated local news industry.
Continue reading...Charity says findings from schools in England show need for early intervention and fewer exclusions
Children who are suspended from school in England even for short periods see their GCSE results suffer, according to research that highlights the need for early interventions to reduce suspensions.
Pupils who had been suspended were found to be lagging a year behind their peers and on average were unable to achieve a standard pass in GCSE maths and English.
Continue reading...Project finds police recorded 93 suspected domestic abuse-related suicides in a year – one every four days
Campaigners for women’s rights in the UK are calling for more mental health support for domestic abuse victims after police recorded 93 suspected abuse-related suicides in a year.
A report found 242 domestic abuse-related deaths were recorded between April 2022 and March 2023, of which 93 were suspected suicides, 80 were intimate partner homicides, 31 were adult family homicides, 23 were unexpected deaths, 11 were child deaths, and four others were deaths involving individuals living together who were not family members or intimate partners.
Continue reading...Father calls on judge to block medically assisted death in case that highlights limits on family members’ ability to intervene
A Canadian man has called on a judge to block his 27-year-old daughter’s medically assisted death, arguing she lacks the ability to fully consent to the procedure in a case that highlights the limits on family members’ ability to intervene when a person has decided to die.
The Alberta woman – known as MV due to a publication ban – was set to die on 1 February after receiving approval from two doctors. But her father, WV, successfully applied for an injunction, arguing that she has an undiagnosed mental illness that prevents her from fully consenting to the procedure.
Continue reading...Grosvenor says it is prevented from making 3,000 visits a week as it pays migrant workers to sit at home because permits not renewed
One of the UK’s biggest home care providers says it is paying dozens of migrant workers to sit at home and do nothing because the Home Office has not renewed key immigration permits.
Thousands of workers, mostly from Africa, were welcomed into the UK to help fill the one in 10 care worker jobs vacant after the Covid crisis. But after scammers abused the system, leading to allegations of modern slavery, the government appears to have tightened the application of the rules.
Continue reading...Study finds reception-age girls with obesity 67% more likely to see doctor about musculoskeletal issues than those at healthy weight
Girls aged between four and 11 who are overweight or obese are more likely to see a GP at least once about musculoskeletal problems than their healthy weight peers, research suggests.
Pupils in reception year who had a body mass index considered overweight were 24% more likely to see a doctor at least once for a musculoskeletal issue while their peers who were living with obesity were 67% more likely to do so than girls with a healthy weight, the study found.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 12 prominent organisations sign open letter criticising lack of humanitarian access
Twelve of Israel’s most prominent human rights organisations have signed an open letter accusing the country of failing to comply with the international court of justice’s (ICJ) provisional ruling that it should facilitate access of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The court in The Hague made a number of legal requirements of Israel when it issued a provisional ruling in late January in response to South Africa’s complaint accusing the state of committing genocide in its military campaign in Gaza.
Continue reading...DWP missed many chances to act as woman’s mental health declined while under overpayment investigation
A coroner has criticised the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) after a woman died from an overdose in the wake of a six-month official investigation that left her with soaring universal credit debts.
Fiona Butler, the assistant coroner for Rutland and North Leicestershire, wrote a Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report to the DWP highlighting its failures to respond to the victim’s mental health issues.
Continue reading...At least a quarter of councils are taking more than a year to provide vital support to people with a new visual impairment diagnosis
The lives of thousands of blind and partially sighted people are being put at risk by delays in vital care that they have a legal right to after being assessed as visually impaired, according to a report.
More than a quarter of English councils are leaving people who have just been diagnosed as blind waiting more than a year for vision rehabilitation assessments and potentially life-saving support, the report by the RNIB revealed.
Continue reading...Celebrity chef clashes with health secretary over what he calls government’s lack of obesity strategy
The celebrity chef and Green party supporter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has clashed with the UK health secretary, Victoria Atkins, over what he says is the government’s failure to tackle the obesity crisis.
Fearnley-Whittingstall challenged Atkins during a live discussion on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, accusing ministers of doing “next to nothing” to tackle obesity in England.
Continue reading...Government was to look at whether offenders tend to commit increasingly serious crimes after outcry over warning signs with police officer Wayne Couzens
The government has failed to fund research into the escalation of sex crimes, despite promising to do so in the wake of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
In 2021, the Home Office pledged to “take forward work looking at the escalation of sexual offending” as part of its plan to tackle violence against women and girls. The plan, which had the tagline “the safety of women and girls across the country is our priority”, was informed by 180,000 public submissions after Everard was killed by serving police officer Wayne Couzens.
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