Royal College of Psychiatrists says impact on mental health often overlooked and calls for improvements in care
Nearly three-quarters of UK women do not know menopause can trigger a new mental illness, polling shows.
This lack of understanding is so acute that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has launched its first targeted “position statement” to raise awareness about menopause and mental health.
Continue reading...Most believe they will struggle to get an appointment, with over a quarter choosing to manage ailment themselves
Almost half the public delay or avoid contacting their GP surgery when they are ill, mainly because they think they will struggle to get an appointment.
Overall 48% of people across the UK did not bother to ask their family doctor for help – either initially or at all – when they got sick over the past year, a survey found.
Faster access to GPs and A&E are the public’s top priorities for the NHS.
Only 32% believe the NHS provides a good service nationally.
42% think the standard of NHS care has worsened over the past year and only 12% think that it has improved.
47% fear NHS care will decline further over the next year and just 15% expect it to get better
Continue reading...Rahmeh Aladwan barred from practising for 15 months pending inquiry amid claims she ‘celebrated terrorist acts’
An NHS doctor accused of antisemitism has been suspended for 15 months pending an investigation, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in the UK has ruled.
The General Medical Council (GMC) is investigating Dr Rahmeh Aladwan over posts and comments made across various social media platforms after several complaints, including from the Jewish Medical Association UK and the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Continue reading...Fallout continues over budget income tax U-turn, with Treasury saying expected fiscal gap has dropped to £20bn
This is from Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, on the market reaction to the chancellor’s reported budget U-turn.
Investors will have 2 broad concerns about news that Chancellor won’t increase income tax rates
1. Does it signal less willingness to do politically difficult things
Britain’s long-term borrowing costs were sent soaring as reports suggested the latest U-turn would leave Rachel Reeves scrambling to fill a gaping black hole in the nation’s finances just two weeks before the 26 November budget.
Yields on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, jumped as much as 14 basis points in early trading, and the yield on 10-year gilts also shot up 12 basis points – rising the most since July.
Continue reading...Research covering 24 countries finds female and younger staff face worst aggression from patients
Violence and abuse by patients against staff in GP clinics is widespread globally and usually triggered by long waiting times and the refusal to prescribe requested drugs, research shows.
The findings are based on a 24-country study of the threats and aggression that family doctors, receptionists and other practice staff experience at work.
Continue reading...Medical tribunal rules ‘very low risk’ of Suhail Anjum, who had been dismissed by hospital in Greater Manchester, repeating behaviour
A doctor who left a patient midway through an operation to have sex with a nurse is at “very low risk” of repeating his serious misconduct, a medical tribunal has ruled.
Dr Suhail Anjum, 44, and the unnamed nurse were caught in a “compromising position” by a colleague who walked in on the pair at Tameside hospital. The consultant anaesthetist had asked another nursing colleague to monitor the male patient, who was under general anaesthetic, so he could go to the bathroom.
Continue reading...Doctors say NHS rollout not fit for purpose with fewer than half of commissioning bodies prescribing Mounjaro
Thousands of patients in England are unable to access weight loss jabs via their GP, figures reveal, as doctors warn that the NHS rollout is “not fit for purpose”.
Family doctors got the green light to prescribe the drugs for the first time in June. About 220,000 people with “greatest need” were set to receive Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide and made by Eli Lilly, on the NHS over the next three years.
Continue reading...Principle of medical neutrality threatened as doctors and hospitals deliberately attacked, particularly in Gaza
Targeting medics and hospitals in acts of war should be called “healthocide”, academics have urged, amid an increase in such attacks in recent years.
Health services are increasingly deliberately under attack and medics are facing violence and abuse in conflict zones around the world – in particular in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and El Salvador.
Continue reading...The BMA says resident doctors have seen their pay fall by a much greater amount in real terms since 2008-09 than the rest of the population
The Conservatives have accused Labour of having “opened the door” to fresh resident doctors’ strikes with a “spineless surrender to union demands last year”.
Shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said: “They handed out inflation-busting pay rises without reform, and now the BMA are back for more.
It is hard to believe that, yet again, we are going into industrial action by our resident (formerly junior) doctors. It has only been a year since the last round of strikes and the length of this one – five days at two weeks’ notice over the summer when people are away – is designed to send a message.
Consultants were, by and large, supportive of the previous rounds of strikes. There is a recognition our residents have it harder than we did. There is more financial hardship than there used to be, their salaries don’t go as far as ours did when we were training, and they have amassed more student debt.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Latest poll comes as Wes Streeting urges medics to call off ‘unnecessary and unfair strikes’
Public support for strikes by resident doctors has collapsed, with barely one in four voters now backing their campaign of industrial action, according to the latest polling, which reveals the deepening unpopularity of further NHS strikes.
Previously strong approval by voters for strikes by junior doctors – as resident doctors were known until last year – has halved from 52% a year ago to just 26%.
Continue reading...Resident doctors have voted to strike over pay but how much has their real-terms earnings changed since 2008?
Resident doctors in England have voted to strike for five days from 25 July, reigniting one of the NHS’s most bitter industrial disputes.
At the heart of the row is pay: the British Medical Association (BMA) says resident (formerly known as junior) doctors have seen their real earnings fall by more than a quarter since 2008. The government says the union’s demands are unaffordable, and they’ve already received generous rises in recent years.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Tom Dolphin says rise needed to redress real-terms earnings loss since 2008 and strikes could last years
Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS, the new leader of the medical profession has said.
Strikes to ensure resident – formerly junior – doctors in England get the full 29% could drag on for years, according to Dr Tom Dolphin, the British Medical Association’s new council chair.
Continue reading...UK prime minister will have talks with Emmanuel Macron later today
The BMA strike decision must be a tempting topic for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, which is starting very soon. The Conservatives have repeatedly criticised the government for the way they swiftly settled public sector pay disputes when they took office; they argue that Labour was too generous to the unions, thereby encouraging them to threaten further strikes.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Streeting says he is “disappointed” by the proposed strike, and he insists resident doctors have had a relatively good outcome on pay. He says:
I remain disappointed that despite all that we have been able to achieve in this last year, and that the majority of resident doctors in the BMA did not vote to strike, the BMA is continuing to threaten strike action.
I accepted the DDRB’s recommendation for resident doctors, awarding an average pay rise of 5.4%, the highest across the public sector. Accepting this above inflation recommendation, which was significantly higher than affordability, required reprioritisation of NHS budgets. Because of this government’s commitment to recognising the value of the medical workforce, we made back-office efficiency savings to invest in the frontline. That was not inevitable, it was an active political choice this government made. Taken with the previous deal I made with the BMA last year, this means resident doctors will receive an average pay rise of 28.9% over the last 3 years.
He says the NHS is “finally moving in the right direction” and that a strike will “put that recovery at risk”.
He offers to hold meet the BMA to hold talks to avert the strike. He says:
I stand ready to meet with you again at your earliest convenience to resolve this dispute without the need for strike action. I would like to once again extend my offer to meet with your entire committee to discuss this.
As I have stated many times, in private and in public, with you and your predecessors, you will not find another health and social care secretary as sympathetic to resident doctors as me. By choosing to strike instead of working in partnership to improve conditions for your members and the NHS, you are squandering an opportunity.
Continue reading...The Royal College of Nursing and Unison are undertaking indicative ballots to assess members’ willingness to strike
A looming fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors could encourage other NHS staff including nurses to take industrial action over pay, health service bosses fear.
Resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, in England are threatening to stage stoppages until January in pursuit of their demand for a 29% pay rise, after 90% voted in favour in a ballot on a 55% turnout.
Continue reading...The health service transformation proposed for England faces daunting challenges that overwhelmed earlier attempts at reform
The government’s 10-year health plan to revive, modernise and future-proof the NHS in England has arrived as the service is facing a dual crisis. It has been unable for a decade now to provide the rapid access – to GPs, A&E care, surgery, ambulances and mental health support – which people need and used to get.
Normalisation of anxiety-inducing, frightening and sometimes fatal delay has produced a less tangible, but also dangerous, crisis: of public satisfaction, born of a profound loss of trust that the NHS will be there for them or their loved ones when they need it.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Letter from six top figures says more walkouts by junior colleagues would help those who oppose the NHS
Six senior figures in England’s medical profession have criticised potential strikes by resident doctors as “a futile gesture” that will harm patients and help those who oppose the NHS.
The move is the first public evidence of the significant unease many senior doctors feel about the possibility of their junior colleagues staging a new campaign of industrial action in England.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Government-ordered review concludes term in NHS should be changed because of risks to patients’ safety
Physician associates in the NHS will be renamed to stop patients mistaking them for doctors after a review found that their title caused widespread confusion.
Thousands of physician associates who work in hospitals and GP surgeries across the UK take medical histories, examine patients and diagnose illnesses but are not doctors.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Too many people at risk of becoming ‘martyrs’ by not getting symptoms checked as they do not want to burden health service, report warns
Too many people are at risk of becoming “martyrs” by not getting symptoms of cancer checked out because they do not want to burden the NHS, warns a report, which calls for earlier testing to diagnose those at higher risk.
The report, by the health consultancy Incisive Health, sets out ways in which the NHS in England can catch more cancers early and thus save lives by becoming more of an “early intervention service”. It comes as the government draws up its first dedicated cancer strategy since 2015.
Continue reading...New accreditation for PAs and anaesthesia associates is ‘important milestone’ for patient assurance, regulator says
More than 1,000 physician associates (PAs) could begin their careers in the NHS every year after regulators approved dozens of courses to teach them.
The General Medical Council (GMC) said it had given 36 courses formal approval to teach PAs and anaesthesia associates (AAs).
Overall, these courses had capacity for up to 1,059 PAs and 42 AAs to qualify each year.
The GMC said approving training courses would mean that “patients, employers and colleagues can be assured that PAs and AAs have the required knowledge and skills to practise safely once they qualify”.
PAs are graduates – usually with a health or life sciences degree – who have undertaken two years of postgraduate training.
According to the NHS, PAs work under the supervision of a doctor and can diagnose people, take medical histories, perform physical examinations, see patients with long-term conditions, analyse test results and develop management plans.
There were calls for more clarity in the PA role and better patient protection after the death of Emily Chesterton, 30, in November 2022 from a pulmonary embolism.
Chesterton was misdiagnosed by a PA in London on two occasions who said her calf pain was a sprain, when she actually had a blood clot.
Most associates work in GP surgeries, acute medicine and emergency medicine while AAs work as part of the anaesthesia and wider surgical team.
The GMC, which took over the regulation of PAs and AAs in December, said it had approved 33 PA courses.
Four of these – at Bradford, Greater Manchester, Queen Mary University of London and Sheffield Hallam – had been approved with “conditions” after some concerns were identified during the approval process.
The GMC said each of these courses had a “targeted action plan” in place to address concerns.
The regulator did not approve the course at the University of East London.
There are only three courses for AAs – in Birmingham, University College London and Lancaster – that were all approved, the GMC said.
Prof Colin Melville, the GMC’s medical director and director of education and standards, said: “This is an important milestone in the regulation of PAs and AAs and will provide assurance, now and in the future, that those who qualify in these roles have the appropriate skills and knowledge that patients rightly expect and deserve.
“As a regulator, patient safety is paramount, and we have a robust quality assurance process for PA and AA courses, as we do for medical schools. We have been engaging with course providers for several years already, and we only grant approval where they meet our high standards.”
In November, Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, announced an independent review of the PA and AA professions led by Prof Gillian Leng, the president of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “The formal accreditation of the courses of study that PAs and AAs must complete is an essential component of regulation and public safety.
“We await the outcome of the Leng review but recognise that individual NHS organisations also have a responsibility to support PAs and AAs to both use their knowledge safely with patients, and to ensure appropriate professional development and supervision.”
Prof Phil Banfield, the council chair at the British Medical Association, said it was “difficult to understand” how the GMC could approve the courses when the Leng review into PAs and AAs has not concluded.
He added: “The medical profession has alarming worries about the quality and robustness of these courses, with reports of exams with 100% pass rates.
“We have made doctors’ concerns clear in our submission to the Leng review, which includes a call for an independent body of doctors, without links to course providers, to determine proportionate and safe expectations of what can be covered in curricula for assistant roles within a two-year training period.”
PA Media contributed to this report
Surgeries will be able to claim money if doctors refer patients to an out-of-hospital setting in bid to cut waiting lists
GPs in England will be paid £20 each time they decide not to send a patient to hospital under a government scheme to help reduce the NHS waiting list.
Family doctors will be able to claim the money if they instead refer patients for tests and treatment in an out-of-hospital setting, such as a health clinic, or to see a community-based specialist.
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