Category Archives: Health

UK health insurer Vitality to offer members discounted anti-obesity drugs

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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.

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Keir Starmer takes public HIV test in push to destigmatise testing for virus

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Prime minister takes home test at No 10 with soul singer Beverley Knight to promote HIV Testing Week

Keir Starmer has taken a public HIV test in an effort to destigmatise testing for the virus and to highlight HIV Testing Week.

The prime minister took a home test at 10 Downing Street alongside the soul singer Beverley Knight. “It’s really important to do it and I’m really pleased to be able to do it. It’s very easy, very quick,” he said.

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Campaign launched to make public toilets a legal requirement in Britain

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Legalise Loos initiative intended to halt slump in number of conveniences in town centres, parks and other locations

It will involve spending more than a penny, but it’s a call that is likely to be viewed sympathetically by anyone who has ever been caught short while out and about.

A campaign has been launched to make the provision of public toilets a legal requirement for central government and local authorities after a slump in the number of loos in town centres, parks and other locations.

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NHS staff barred from workplace for considering Palestine demonstration

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An investigation found the pair had no case to answer and that the trust had breached its own disciplinary policy

Two NHS professionals were investigated and barred from their workplace for expressing interest in organising a peaceful protest in support of Palestine during their lunch break.

The therapist and nurse were accused of posing a threat to the “personal safety” of the staff at Kensington and Chelsea child and adolescent mental health service, and of “bringing the trust into disrepute” for considering the demonstration.

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Air pollution causing 1,100 cases a year of main form of lung cancer in UK

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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.

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Brad Battin says Liberals ousted Greens in Prahran by ‘listening to locals’ – as it happened

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Coalition backs healthcare package

Gallagher welcomed the opposition backing Labor’s package for women’s health this morning. She said on ABC Insiders:

We know Peter Dutton wanders around saying he’s going to cut a whole range of things. He’s clear he sees a lot of our investments in Medicare as wasteful spending. But these are really good investments into women’s health. And it will make a difference for millions of people across the country including women who are going through men who really have felt left behind by the health system and hopefully these new measures will address all of those issues.

It’s come down quite obviously for women across the country, the use of contraception, going through different stages of your life, including menopause, that these are areas that either haven’t been addressed for decades, or haven’t been met appropriately through the Medicare system. So, you know, we have landed the hospital deal, keep investing in the public health system, we have got a lot of initiatives about strengthening Medicare and this builds on that.

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Trump administration to cut billions in medical research funding

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National Institutes of Health said the $4bn loss will affect ‘indirect’ funding of buildings, equipment and staff

The Trump administration is cutting billions of dollars in medical research funding for universities, hospitals and other scientific institutions by reducing the amount they get in associated costs to support such research.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said that it was reducing the amount of “indirect” medical research funding going to institutions, which will cut spending by $4bn a year.

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Health minister Andrew Gwynne sacked over offensive WhatsApp comments

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MP also suspended from Labour party after exposure of messages in which he said he hoped for pensioner’s death

A Labour minister has been sacked and suspended from the party after messages were exposed in which he said he hoped a pensioner who did not support him would die before the next set of elections.

Andrew Gwynne, who was a health minister, was also accused of writing a series of other messages containing racist and sexist comments. They included apparent antisemitic remarks and demeaning comments about Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister.

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Children still being sent far from home for mental health care in England

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Figures show practice continues eight years after pledge to end it, potentially impeding young people’s recovery

Children and young people in England with serious mental health problems are still being sent for treatment many miles away from their homes because bed shortages in some areas remain so severe, despite a pledge to end such practices eight years ago.

NHS England promised in 2017 to stop forcing highly troubled under-18s to leave family and friends after some received care more than 300 miles from where they lived.

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‘Strong reasonable doubt’ over Lucy Letby insulin convictions, experts say

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Exclusive: ‘No scientific justification’ to say former nurse definitely poisoned babies with insulin, according to study authors

The claim that Lucy Letby definitely poisoned babies with insulin has “no scientific justification whatsoever” and there is a “very strong level of reasonable doubt” about the convictions, according to the authors of a 100-page study on the case.

Prof Geoff Chase, one of the world’s foremost experts on the effect of insulin on pre-term babies, told the Guardian it was “very unlikely” anyone had administered potentially lethal doses to two of the infants.

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Australia news live: BoM warns of life-threatening flash floods in Queensland and severe storms in north-east Victoria

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Flood-hit Townsville, Cardwell and Ingham could face more dangerous flooding. Follow the latest news live

O’Neil makes housing announcements in lead-up to election

The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, is in Parramatta today and will travel to Bennelong later, announcing 28 new social and affordable homes

Funding is incredibly important here. I know all of our Australians at home who are watching are really deeply concerned about those devastating differences we see between health outcomes, even important things like infant mortality.

All of the indicators that we use to determine equality of life are very different between our First Nations communities, particularly in remote areas.

I think our prime minister has been quite sober and rational about this, but it is not a reasonable idea, and it’s not shrewd as described by Peter Dutton.

So I think the prime minister has done the right thing. And Peter Dutton is out there playing politics.

But the issue, I think, here that we’re missing is that Gaza has completely been destroyed … It’s devastating to see those kind of images. So there needs to be a rebuild. There needs to be a place that people can come back to in a safe haven for them to call home.

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NSW doctors embrace ‘marshmellow’ moniker to highlight ‘catastrophic situation’ in public hospitals

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Union says viral email stuff-up downplaying junior doctors’ concerns has become a focal point for what it labels ‘toxic’ and ‘hazardous’ workplace conditions

If you were to walk into a New South Wales hospital over the past week, you might have seen doctors bringing marshmallows to work, or perhaps cartoon images of the anthropomorphised gelatinous sweet with a stethoscope and white lab coat upon their break-room walls.

Thousands of doctors across the state have embraced calling themselves “clinical marshmellows [sic]” after a medical administration manager at the Hunter New England local health district called junior doctors the moniker in an email stuff-up.

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Flies in hospital wards may be spreading drug-resistant bacteria to patients

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Scientists in Nigeria found the insects carry infections resistant to last-resort antibiotics, adding to fears about superbugs

Flies buzzing between beds may be spreading drug-resistant bugs among patients in hospitals, according to new research.

Researchers from the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI) found that houseflies in Nigerian hospitals carry bacteria resistant to some key antibiotics, including those used only as a last resort.

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Labour MP to push for better maternal mental health care after friend’s suicide

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Laura Kyrke-Smith says perinatal mental health care in England is ‘postcode lottery’, with disadvantaged women more likely to miss out

A new Labour MP will speak in parliament on Wednesday of her anguish over her friend’s suicide just 10 weeks after giving birth – despite the friend having repeatedly sought help for her anxiety.

Laura Kyrke-Smith, the MP for Aylesbury, will call for more specific mental health support to be embedded in maternity services.

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Third of Spanish schools offering too much fried food – study

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Findings published as as country prepares legislation to reduce childhood obesity

Almost a third of Spain’s school canteens are offering students too many portions of fried food each week, while more than a third are not providing them with enough fresh vegetables, according to a study from the country’s national food agency.

The findings, based on figures from 2023, come as Spain’s socialist-led government prepares legislation that aims to reduce obesity by targeting unhealthy, sugary foods and making the food agency’s recommendations obligatory.

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Vehicle tyres found to be biggest source of nanoplastics in the high Alps

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Mountaineers now scaling more peaks for first global study of nanoplastics, which can enter lungs and bloodstream

Particles from vehicle tyre wear are the biggest source of nanoplastic pollution in the high Alps, a pioneering project has revealed.

Expert mountaineers teamed up with scientists to collect contamination-free samples and are now scaling peaks to produce the first global assessment of nanoplastics, which are easily carried around the world by winds.

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Sydney traditional Chinese medicine practitioner found guilty of professional misconduct after tourist dies

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Chinese national, 57, staying with her daughter in Australia died after Yun Sen Luo’s advice to cease all ‘western medicine’

A Sydney-based practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine has been found guilty of professional misconduct after a diabetic woman died after his advice to cease all “western medicine”.

Yun Sen Luo was found guilty on 30 January of unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct after being prosecuted by the Health Care Complaints Commission before the New South Wales civil and administrative tribunal.

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NHS to launch world’s biggest trial of AI breast cancer diagnosis

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If successful, the scheme could speed up testing and reduce radiologists’ workload by around half

The NHS is launching the world’s biggest trial of artificial intelligence to detect breast cancer, which could lead to faster diagnosis of the disease.

AI will be deployed to analyse two-thirds of at least 700,000 mammograms done in England over the next few years to see if it is as accurate and reliable at reading scans as a radiologist.

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Trump aid spending freeze halts leading malaria vaccine programme

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Global collaboration with US researchers likely to be set back by years, including on spread of drug-resistant HIV

A flagship programme to create malaria vaccines has been halted by the Trump administration, in just one example of a rippling disruption to health research around the globe since the new US president took power.

The USAid Malaria Vaccine Development Program (MVDP) – which works to prevent child deaths by creating more effective second-generation vaccines – funds research by teams collaborating across institutes, including the US university Johns Hopkins and the UK’s University of Oxford.

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Australia news live: youth vaping rates plummet after law reform; police alert 5000 Australians targeted by overseas romance scam

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The federal health minister cited data showing vape use among young Australians has significantly reduced meaning new laws are working. Follow today’s news live

Cyclone threat looms in northern Australia as drenched region braces for yet more rain

North Queensland is on cyclone watch with three tropical lows given a chance of developing in the coming days, bringing heavy rain that has flooded roads and homes.

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