Exclusive: NHS England has dramatically increased recruitment of workers from states with critical medical staff shortages
Brexit has left the NHS increasingly dependent on doctors and nurses from poor “red list” countries, from which the World Health Organization says it is wrong to recruit.
The health service in England has hired tens of thousands of health staff from countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe since the UK left the EU single market at the end of 2020.
Continue reading...Thinktank predicts PM will not realise ambition for 92% of patients in England to wait less than 18 weeks for planned care by 2029
Keir Starmer is unlikely to fulfil his pledge to restore the maximum 18-week wait for planned hospital care before the next election, a leading thinktank has said.
The prime minister has made bringing back the 18-week access standard in England, by ensuring that 92% of patients are seen within that time, one of the six “milestones” he has promised to achieve by 2029.
Continue reading...Lord Darzi’s undeclared interests in four companies included $500,000 of shares in US-based healthcare venture
The independent peer Lord Darzi, a senior adviser to the government on the NHS, failed to officially declare shareholdings in healthcare companies worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Ara Darzi is an eminent surgeon and professor at Imperial College London whose report on the NHS for the government in September informed the decision announced last week by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to abolish NHS England. Darzi also has an extensive portfolio of private interests in commercial medical companies.
Continue reading...Lord Agnew says fast-track PPE procurement was not ‘some kind of plan by rightwing people to enrich themselves’
A former minister behind the controversial VIP lane for supplying personal protective equipment during the pandemic said “some crooks” were probably awarded contracts, but defended the scheme as necessary to plug shortages.
Lord Agnew, who was a Cabinet Office minister responsible for procurement during the pandemic, accused the Covid inquiry of having a “misconceived obsession with the high-priority lane”.
Continue reading...Loss of staff will be at least twice as big as thought, as new NHS England chief tells regional boards to cut costs by 50%
The jobs cull from the government’s radical restructuring of the NHS will be at least twice as big as previously thought, with other parts of the health service now being downsized too.
The staff shakeout caused by NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting elsewhere will mean the number of lost posts will soar from the 10,000 expected to between 20,000 and 30,000.
Continue reading...Scientific triumphs were made in the battle against the pandemic, but the memories and lessons are already in danger of being lost
On 9 March 2020, Martin Landray was studying the likely impact of Covid-19 as it started to sweep Britain. What was needed, he realised, was a method for pinpointing cheap, effective drugs that might limit the impact of the Sars-CoV-2 virus that was filling UK hospitals with dangerously ill patients.
Within 10 days, Landray – working with Oxford University colleague Peter Horby – had set up Recovery, a drug-testing programme that involved thousands of doctors and nurses working with tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients in UK hospitals.
Continue reading...New method reported to cut number of false positives by 87% has been registered with regulator for approval
A new swab test could help hundreds of thousands of women a year in the UK who may have womb cancer avoid having an often painful invasive procedure to detect the disease.
About 800,000 women annually go to see a GP because they are suffering from abnormal bleeding from their uterus and then undergo uncomfortable and stressful investigations to identify the cause.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Medics more sleep deprived now than during Covid crisis amid staff shortages and surging demand
One in three doctors in the NHS are so tired that their ability to treat patients is impaired, according to a report that reveals medics are more sleep deprived now than during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Longer hours, staff shortages and soaring demand for care on top of the backlog that worsened during the Covid crisis are causing extreme tiredness among doctors, leading to memory blanks, problems concentrating and patient harm.
Continue reading...Chair rules that details about PPE contracts given to company linked to Tory peer will be heard in closed session
The Covid inquiry will hear detailed evidence about the multimillion-pound PPE contracts awarded during the crisis to a company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, but in private, the inquiry chair has ruled.
The National Crime Agency has since May 2021 been investigating potential criminal offences committed in the procurement of the contracts awarded to the company, PPE Medpro, and argued that its investigation could be prejudiced if the inquiry heard evidence in public.
Continue reading...Public concern about NHS is worrying and frightening, says leading emergency doctor after poll revealed
Three in four people in the UK fear getting stuck on a trolley in a hospital corridor or an ambulance not arriving after dialling 999, prompting claims that the NHS is facing “a crisis of public trust”.
Huge numbers also worry about their local A&E not having enough beds (77%) and not being able to get care at their GP surgery (70%), research also found.
Continue reading...Third-largest healthcare insurer will be first to give 20% off treatments such as Wegovy and Mounjaro through health cover
Vitality has become the first health insurer in the UK to offer customers discounted weight loss treatments for up to a year through its health cover.
The UK’s third-largest health insurer behind Bupa and Axa, with 1.9 million members, said it would offer discounts of up to 20% for medications such as Wegovy and Mounjaro – which are popular but pricey – to members, based on their body mass index (BMI) and weight-related health conditions.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Health experts and cancer charities say findings should serve as wake-up call to ministers
More than 1,100 people a year in the UK are developing the most prevalent form of lung cancer as a result of air pollution, the Guardian can reveal.
Exposure to toxic air was attributed to 515 men and 590 women in the UK in 2022 getting adenocarcinoma – now the most dominant of the four main subtypes of lung cancer – an analysis by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency found.
Continue reading...Plans shelved include earlier cancer diagnosis, boosting women’s health and expanding access to dental care
NHS England is scrapping plans to diagnose more cancers early, boost women’s health and ramp up childhood vaccinations after ministers told it to prioritise cutting waiting times.
The health service is also abandoning pledges to expand access to dental treatment, give more people drugs to prevent strokes and enhance care for those with learning disabilities.
Continue reading...Former health secretary told Covid inquiry an onshore facility was ‘critical’ in preparation for future pandemic
Britain must build its own vaccine manufacturing capability as a “critical” part of preparing for a future pandemic, the former health secretary Matt Hancock has told the Covid inquiry.
Hancock, a central figure in the UK’s response to the crisis, said the pandemic demonstrated the “vital need” for a sovereign onshore facility to ensure the country was able to produce and distribute vaccine doses as soon as regulators gave the green light.
Continue reading...Annual sector review says tax and wage rises and council funding cuts have left services in ‘state of acute precarity’
Charities providing specialist care to thousands of vulnerable adults with learning disabilities and severe autism are having to “evict” residents to avoid insolvency because of tax and wage rises and local authority funding cuts.
Non-profit providers say their work is in a “state of acute precarity” with many preparing to cut services, close doors to new residents and effectively evict tenants because the fees councils pay no longer meet the cost of care.
Continue reading...Colour-coded output from smartwatch device would be easy for public to read
They remain some of the most complex diagnostic procedures carried out by doctors. To take an electrocardiogram, or ECG, they first have to attach 10 or more electrodes to a patient’s chest, arms and legs to measure the heart’s electrical activity. Then, once these signals have been recorded, a cardiologist has to interpret them to determine if a person has a particular heart ailment.
It is a life-saving technology – but a complicated, expensive one. However, UK scientists now believe they could soon overcome these limitations by developing devices which will allow patients to take their own detailed ECGs at home and be provided with easily interpreted diagnoses about the state of their hearts.
Continue reading...Royal College of Radiologists calls move ‘shortsighted’ and says it puts Labour’s waiting times plan at risk
Dozens of NHS hospitals have banned their cancer or diagnostic units from hiring new staff, despite GPs referring growing numbers of people who they fear may have the disease.
Doctors warned that widespread recruitment freezes imposed on both types of units over the last year risked undermining Keir Starmer’s drive, outlined this week, to cut waiting times for NHS care.
13 of 54 cancer centres (24.1%) had a recruitment freeze imposed on them last year, along with 29 out of 150 (19.3%) radiology departments.
The 42 hiring bans were imposed by 40 different NHS trusts or boards.
At least one freeze was implemented in each of the four home nations and each region of England.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing says Labour has a duty to fix health ‘double whammy’ by raising aid and funding for UK nursing
The UK cut health aid to some of the world’s vulnerable countries at the same time as recruiting thousands of their nurses, in a “double whammy” for fragile health systems, new analysis has found.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which carried out the research, said Labour had a “duty to fix” aid cuts imposed by the previous government, and to work on increasing the UK’s domestic supply of nurses.
Continue reading...Ever growing numbers of people find themselves unable to get NHS treatment or pay for the alternative
Exclusive: patients unable to get dental care after ‘eye-watering’ rise in private fees
The inability of millions of patients to access an NHS dentist is one of the longest-running injustices in the history of the health service. The misery and the harm it causes is profound and well documented. The scandal is not new.
Going private is often the only alternative. If it means getting a checkup, a scale and polish, a filling, an extraction or if necessary a root canal, many will pay. Anything to keep your teeth in good nick.
Continue reading...Several MPs preparing to suggest amendments on key concerns including coercion and role of medics
Up to 30 MPs who backed assisted dying could withdraw support at the next parliamentary vote, MPs have said, as several prepare to suggest amendments on coercion and the role of medics.
The committee that will examine the next stage of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill will begin hearings in the new year, with MPs coalescing around several demands for changes to the legislation.
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