Christian and Muslim groups say medics who refuse to help patients die not protected in England and Wales bill
A significant proportion of NHS medical staff are likely to exercise a conscience clause if assisted dying is legalised by parliament.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill stipulates that no doctor would be under any obligation to participate in assisted dying.
Continue reading...Increase follows Albanese government tripling financial rewards for GPs to bulk bill pensioners, concession card holders and children
More than 5.4m additional visits to the doctor were bulk billed in the last year due to a boost to incentives, according to figures released by the health minister, Mark Butler.
The proportion of all doctors’ visits that are bulk billed has increased by 1.7 points from 75.6% in October last year to 77.3% this October, the data shows.
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Continue reading...Care providers, GPs and pharmacists warn increased costs will cause cuts and job losses
Services that support some of England’s most vulnerable people have warned that tax increases in the budget will lead to cuts and closures that could devastate the charity sector.
Although the NHS and councils are protected from the impact of the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions (NICs) announced in Wednesday’s budget, charities that provide services say the increase means they will face “existential” financial pressures.
Continue reading...Hundreds of health workers sign letter to General Medical Council calling for halt to suspensions as GP faces jail for activism
Hundreds of health workers have called on the General Medical Council to stop suspending doctors imprisoned for peaceful climate activism ahead of a trial which could see the first jailing of a working GP for a non-violent climate protest in the UK.
Two retired GPs have been suspended by GMC-convened tribunals this year after receiving short sentences for non-violent offences during Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain protests in 2021 and 2022. The medical regulator did not express concerns about the doctors’ clinical capabilities but said their actions undermined public confidence in the profession.
Continue reading...Procedures performed by convicted breast surgeon were not a recognised or authorised type of operation
The convicted breast surgeon Ian Paterson pitched one of his patients an unauthorised cleavage-sparing mastectomy “almost like a sales job”, an inquest has heard.
Chloe Nikitas, an environmental consultant from Tamworth, died in 2008 at the age of 43 from breast cancer that returned three years after having a mastectomy she believed had removed all of her breast tissue.
Continue reading...New climate network will teach trainee doctors more about heatstroke, dengue and malaria and role of global warming in health
Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria will become a bigger part of the curriculum at medical schools across Europe in the face of the climate crisis.
Future doctors will also have more training on how to recognise and treat heatstroke, and be expected to take the climate impact of treatments such as inhalers for asthma into account, medical school leaders said, announcing the formation of the European Network on Climate & Health Education (Enche).
Continue reading...Federal health minister also calls for prosecution of shopkeepers caught illegally selling vapes
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, says he is “astounded” that medical students can spend as little as one hour learning about menopause and has signalled that the government is likely to take action after a damning parliamentary inquiry.
On Sunday Butler told the ABC’s Insiders that several inquiries had told a “shameful story” about women’s treatment in Australia’s health system, saying there was more to do after Labor’s “modest investments” in women’s health.
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Continue reading...Angela Eagle, border security minister, says prime minister has to answer why he has accepted £76,000 worth of gifts since 2019 election
The number of migrants who have crossed the English Channel since Labour won the general election has passed 10,000, according to provisional figures from the Home Office. As PA Media reports, some 65 migrants were detected crossing the Channel on Monday, taking the cumulative number of arrivals since July 4 to 10,024. PA says:
The cumulative total for the year so far now stands at 23,598.
This is 1% lower than the equivalent figure at this point last year, which was 23,940, and 21% lower than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 29,783.
The home secretary announced the package of up to £75m, which redirects funds originally allocated to the previous government’s Illegal Migration Act. It will unlock sophisticated new technology and extra capabilities for the NCA to bolster UK border security and disrupt the criminal people smuggling gangs. The investment is designed to build on a pattern of successful upstream disruptions announced at an operational summit, attended by the prime minister, at the NCA headquarters last week.
They became climate dinosaurs, crashing offshore wind, blocking onshore wind, moving the goalposts on electric vehicle targets, doubling down on oil and gas, leaving British wildlife in crisis.
Our biodiversity declining at an unprecedented rate, our precious national parks in decline, our rivers, lakes and seas awash with toxic sewage, blind to the opportunities of the energy transition – a fossil fuel government in a renewable age.
Continue reading...London-based doctor Tajwer Siddiqui says Home Office rules are separating him from his wife and Alina, 19
An experienced and highly regarded doctor who is working at a GP surgery in east London says he has no choice but to walk away from his job because the Home Office is separating him from his wife and autistic daughter.
Tajwer Siddiqui says he has found himself in this situation at a time when the number of full-time GPs in the UK is falling.
Continue reading...Patients and relatives turn on doctors and nurses, with 16,000 reports of physical and verbal assaults in 2023 alone
Doctors’ and nurses’ unions in Italy have called for authorities to consider bringing the army into hospitals in response to an increase in attacks by patients and their relatives that provoked outrage across the country.
In one of the latest, captured on video and widely shared on social media, doctors and nurses were forced to barricade themselves in a room at the Policlinico hospital in Foggia, in the southern region of Puglia, on Friday after about 50 relatives and friends of a 23-year-old woman who died after an emergency operation turned on medical staff. Some healthcare workers were injured, with bloodstains visible on the emergency room floor.
Continue reading...Rapidly falling number of family doctors will harm ‘continuity and quality’ of care according to new research
The NHS in England is heading towards a “tipping point” after which GPs will no longer provide the majority of appointments because their numbers are falling so fast.
That is the conclusion of an extensive piece of new research that also shows one in five surgeries has shut and the number of patients each family doctor looks after has soared over the last decade.
1,625 GP surgeries closed between 2013 and 2023 – a fall of 20% or 178 a year – reducing the total number from 8,044 to 6,419.
The average number of patients on each surgery’s books rose by 40% – or 291 a year – over the same period, from 6,967 to 9,724.
Total patient numbers have grown from 56 million to 62.4 million.
Although the overall number of GPs working in the NHS rose, after taking changes in working hours into account those working the equivalent of full-time fell from 27,948 to 27,321.
Continue reading...Ipsos poll found 40% of Britons thought there was not enough time to raise all concerns in 10-minute slot
Two-fifths of patients leave their GP appointment without discussing everything that is worrying them about their health, a survey has revealed.
The finding has prompted claims that older people often feel family doctors “want them out the door as soon as possible” rather than listening to all their concerns.
Continue reading...Doctors’ union has been in turmoil since it voted to in effect reject findings of transgender healthcare report
The British Medical Association (BMA) has been accused of undertaking a “witch-hunt” to try to identify which senior figure leaked that it was set to oppose the landmark Cass review on transgender healthcare.
It has warned its ruling council’s 69 members that whoever tipped off the media about its stance should own up or face their non-cooperation being seen as “an act of dishonesty”. Critics said its action is “disgraceful”, “Orwellian” and “witch-hunt-like”.
Continue reading...General practices forced to ‘do more and more with less and less’, says Doctors’ Association UK
Labour’s promise to “end the 8am scramble” for medical appointments will be impossible without increasing core funding for GPs, according to a leading medical association.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, pledged during the general election campaign that Labour would “end the 8am scramble by allowing patients to easily book appointments to see the doctor they want, in the manner they choose”.
Continue reading...One in four practices capping number of patients they see to 25 a day amid first action in 60 years
Almost half of GP surgeries in England are staging industrial action for the first time in 60 years amid a row over funding, with one in four capping the number of patients they see to 25 a day, a survey suggests.
Family doctors voted overwhelmingly in favour of collective action earlier this month in protest at the last government increasing their budget by only 1.9% this year. The new government has pledged to increase funding for 2024-25 to 6%.
Continue reading...Medical tribunal suspends James Gilbert for eight months for the ‘serious misconduct’ it uncovered
A transplant surgeon found to have sexually harassed four colleagues has been suspended for eight months.
Three of the women James Gilbert, 47, harassed were trainees at the Oxford Transplant Centre, a medical tribunal heard.
Continue reading...Dr George Dimitroulis, who is being sued in a Victorian court by a former patient, denies any injuries were caused by negligence or the prosthesis
A Melbourne surgeon failed to tell a patient undergoing major jaw surgery that the device she was being implanted was an “experimental” one that he invented, and that he also created the classification system used to diagnose her condition as severe enough to warrant removing her jaw joints, according to documents filed in a Victorian court case accusing him of negligence.
The surgeon, Dr George Dimitroulis, is being sued by a former patient, Bianca*, who alleged in a statement of claim filed to Victoria’s supreme court that he did not fully advise her of the risks before the operation.
Continue reading...Exclusive: A&Es and mental health services face ‘dangerous’ surge that could continue into 2025, say bosses
The NHS faces “alarming” and “dangerous” disruption until Christmas and potentially into 2025, health chiefs have said, after GPs began their first industrial action in 60 years amid a major row over funding.
Hospitals, A&E units and mental health services are already under huge pressure. They are now braced for a surge in demand from thousands of patients turning to them for help after family doctors in England launched work-to-rule action on Thursday.
Continue reading...From experiencing a sudden headache at work to being found slumped under a coat in hospital with a brain haemorrhage
• Inquest finds hospital missed two chances to treat Inga Rublite
Inga Rublite was on a break at work when she came down with a sudden headache. Less than 24 hours later, she lay dying on the floor of an overcrowded A&E waiting room under a coat, hidden in plain sight. The sequence of events that led up to her death show an NHS under strain and the risk of patients falling through the cracks.
Continue reading...Health secretary wants to bring back family doctors, cut pressure on hospitals and solve pay disputes
Ministers will divert billions of pounds from hospitals to GPs to “fix the front door to the NHS”, Wes Streeting has promised as he said millions of patients will be able to see the same family doctor at every appointment.
The health secretary made his first major policy announcement as he prepared to begin vital talks with junior doctors on Tuesday, aimed at finally ending the strikes that have crippled the health service since 2022.
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