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...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...Sutton Trust says underrepresentation of poorer students is ‘outrageous’ but number has doubled in 10 years to 2022
Students from working class backgrounds still only make up 5% of entrants to medical schools across the UK, a proportion that has doubled over the past decade, analysis has found.
The research, conducted by the Sutton Trust and University College London (UCL), looked at almost 94,000 applicants to UK medical schools between 2012 and 2022, which represent almost half of all UK medical applicants.
Continue reading...Patient care compromised by closing beds and shifting workload to less qualified staff, motion claims
The New South Wales Labor government is seeking to “redesign” the state’s mental health system without psychiatrists, despite the risks to patient care, its political rivals claim.
In a NSW legislative council meeting on Wednesday, the shadow assistant minister Susan Carter and the Greens’ health spokesperson, Dr Amanda Cohn, lambasted the Minns government’s handling of psychiatrists’ mass resignations, with Carter accusing the responsible ministers of having “sought to redesign our mental health system to work without specialist psychiatrists”.
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Continue reading...Hospital wards struggle to cope with rising cases of self-harm and eating disorders, the study warns
The number of children admitted to acute hospital wards in England due to serious concerns over their mental health has increased by 65% in a decade, with a particularly alarming surge in girls who have self-harmed, research reveals.
Doctors are treating almost 40,000 children with acute mental ill health in general wards every year, up from about 24,000 10 years ago. The increase is six times higher than the rise in admissions of children for all conditions (10.1%) over the same period.
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...Doctors will be given £20 each time they consult with a specialist to see if there is an alternative to hospital visits
GPs will be offered financial incentives to discuss with specialists whether patients can be treated outside hospital, under radical plans to cut NHS waiting lists.
Doctors will be given £20 each time they consult a specialist either by phone or email under the so-called advice and guidance (A&G) scheme, to see if there is an alternative to hospital visits and treatment.
Continue reading...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.
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