Nice approves rimegepant for preventing migraines in cases where at least three previous treatments have failed
Thousands of people in England who get migraines could benefit from a drug that has been approved on the NHS.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the drugs regulator, said it was recommending rimegepant for preventing migraines in the approximately 145,000 adults where at least three previous preventive treatments had failed.
Continue reading...Health secretary Steve Barclay not confirming when strategy to increase numbers of doctors and nurses will be published
NHS leaders have raised concerns about the delay to the long-awaited workforce plan, after the health secretary, Steve Barclay, refused to give a deadline for its publication amid rumours it is considered too costly.
The plan, which was expected to be published on Tuesday, appears to have been delayed, according to the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery.
Barclay blamed the pandemic and “various things that have been happening in recent years” for the delay during broadcast interviews over the weekend. He had previously promised that the plan to increase the number of doctors and nurses would be published before the next general election.
Cordery said the plan, which has already been postponed from last year and aims to fix the UK’s crumbling healthcare system by plugging chronic staff shortages, was needed “as quickly as possible”.
Health groups raise alarm after Sir Mark Rowley says he will order officers not to attend 999 calls about mental health incidents
Thousands of people in a mental health crisis will be “left without support” under worrying and inappropriate police plans to “walk away” from emergency incidents, health chiefs have said.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, the Metropolitan police comissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that from September he would order the force’s police officers not to attend thousands of 999 calls about mental health incidents.
Continue reading...Observer investigation reveals Meta Pixel tool passed on private details of web browsing on medical sites
NHS trusts are sharing intimate details about patients’ medical conditions, appointments and treatments with Facebook without consent and despite promising never to do so.
An Observer investigation has uncovered a covert tracking tool in the websites of 20 NHS trusts which has for years collected browsing information and shared it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy.
Continue reading...Policy was uncovered by defenders of two women repeatedly detained when trying to re-enter the UK
A secret Home Office policy to detain people with the right to live in the UK at air and seaports has been found to be unlawful in the high court.
The policy applied to those with unpaid NHS debts and was only uncovered through evidence gathered from charities and lawyers fighting the cases of two mothers who were repeatedly detained.
Continue reading...Data prompts speculation NHS inability to cut waiting lists could make private healthcare ‘new normal’
Record numbers of people are paying for private healthcare, spending up to £3,200 on having a cataract removed and £15,075 on a new hip, amid growing frustration at NHS waiting lists.
Across the UK last year 272,000 people used their own funds to cover the cost of having an operation or diagnostic procedure at a private hospital. That was up from 262,000 the year before and a sharp rise on the 199,000 who did so in 2019, the year before the Covid pandemic struck.
Continue reading...PM has asked for further information before decided whether ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus will be asked to investigate Braverman. This blog is now closed
Starmer says Labour would zone in on the biggest killers.
He says it would get heart attacks and strokes down by a quarter within a decade.
Continue reading...Family of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had heart attack at home five minutes from hospital in Wrexham
A 58-year-old woman died alone curled up in a blanket on the floor of her bedroom as she waited more than five hours for an ambulance.
Relatives of Rachel Rose Gibson believe she had a heart attack at her home in Wrexham, north Wales, only a short drive away from a hospital, but died before an ambulance reached her.
Continue reading...Signs that NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating surge in people resorting to private care
Patients are paying up to £550 an hour to see private GPs amid frustration at the delays many face getting an appointment with an NHS family doctor.
Growing numbers of paid-for GP services are opening up across Britain, in the latest sign of how the NHS’s inability to offer prompt care is creating a surge in people resorting to private healthcare.
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt’s freeze on allowances and thresholds will put a quarter of teachers and one-eighth of nurses in 40% income tax bracket
One in four teachers and one in eight nurses will be higher-rate taxpayers by 2027 as a result of the government’s record freeze on income tax allowances and thresholds, according to a leading thinktank.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said better-paid public sector workers will be among the almost 8 million people – one in five of all taxpayers – who will pay income tax at 40% or above as result of the Treasury’s attempt to reduce the UK’s budget deficit.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Sector’s staffing crisis will have knock-on effect on whole NHS system, warns healthcare leader
UK ministers must set out how to recruit and retain thousands more mental health nurses to plug the profession’s biggest staff shortage, healthcare leaders are warning.
Mental health nurses account for nearly a third of all nursing vacancies across England, resulting in overstretched services that are struggling to deliver timely care, according to research carried out by the NHS Confederation’s mental health network.
Continue reading...BMA says consultant pay has declined by 35% since 2008-9
Senior doctors in England are to vote on whether to strike amid the continued row over pay in healthcare, as teachers’ unions also plan to hold a ballot for industrial action.
The ballot will open on Monday until 27 June as the British Medical Association urges members to approve.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Victim speaks of feeling violated by hospital doctor incident that expert says is evidence of ‘systemic’ flaw in England
The confidentiality of NHS medical records has been thrown into doubt after a “stalker” hospital doctor accessed and shared highly sensitive information about a woman who had started dating her ex-boyfriend, despite not being involved in her care.
The victim was left in “fear, shock and horror” when she learned that the doctor had used her hospital’s medical records system to look at the woman’s GP records and read – and share – intimate details, known only to a few people, about her and her children.
Continue reading...Pat Cullen raises stakes in dispute with government after nurses reject earlier offer of 5%
The head of the Royal College of Nursing union has called for a double-digit pay rise for nurses in England, raising the stakes in the long-running dispute with the government.
Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN, had previously told members to accept the government’s offer of 5% in March but it was rejected in a vote by 54% to 46%.
Continue reading...NHS in England missed target that patients waiting 18 months for an operation would be treated by April
A key government pledge to reduce the size of the NHS’s record-breaking care backlog has been broken, the health secretary has admitted.
Steve Barclay slipped out the news in a Commons statement on Tuesday about a totally unrelated area of NHS policy – his new plan to improve access to GP care.
Continue reading...Hospitals chief says action ‘will pile even more pressure’ on already overstretched services and calls for talks
Ambulance staff in the south-east of England are to strike over pay for the second time on Tuesday, prompting warnings from hospital bosses of further pressure on overstretched emergency services.
Members of the Unite trade union employed by two ambulance trusts are striking after rejecting the government’s pay offer of a lump sum cash payment for 2022-23 and a below inflation increase of 5% for 2023-24.
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James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has also been giving interviews this morning. He told Sky News that Keir Starmer would have “some serious questions to answer” if today’s Cabinet Office report says she started talks about taking a job with Labour while still working with the civil service team giving advice to the privileges committee in relation to its inquiry into Boris Johnson and Partygate.
Labour sources have told the Telegraph that Gray was not involved in the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team’s (PET’s) work with the privileges committee while she was in contact with Labour.
Continue reading...RCN leader urges health secretary to resolve ongoing pay dispute as one-day strike affects cancer and emergency care for first time
Parliamentary security guards confiscated reports and leaflets about Hong Kong from attenders of an event in Westminster in case they caused political upset, Kiran Stacey and Tom Burgis write, in a move condemned by a senior Conservative MP as “completely daft”.
Officers on the parliamentary estate forced people attending a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong last Monday to hand over copies of a report by the group about press freedom there, as well as leaflets campaigning for the release of the media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
This is a culmination of our pay not reflecting the hours we are working. The last decade has made things considerably worse. Our colleagues are out in force because things have got so bad that we cannot pay our rent or our bills, we are relying on food banks.
We have spent the last few years fighting the pandemic. It matters to us and the care we provide matters to us. The fact the government are not looking at our pay has caused us to do this.
It’s a profession that I love, I love caring for people, and when I started the job it was not like this. The money was small, but it was sufficient, and we were proud of being a nurse.
The definition of nursing is about caring for people and making them comfortable if they are at the end of their lives, but how is that possible when there is one nurse having to look after 10 patients at a time because we’re short-staffed?
How am I supposed to live? If I don’t pay my council tax, they take me to court, or if I don’t pay my rent, I lose my home. At 70, I’m still working; what life is that?
They are clapping for us but refuse to pay us properly. If they (politicians) were here, I would tell them to their faces.
Continue reading...Nurses union head clashes with Steve Barclay over plans to protect patients and RMT rows with Mark Harper about striking on eve of Eurovision final
The Royal College of Nursing has clashed with the government over whether sufficient exemptions have been made to protect patient safety during the nurses’ strike in England that started on Sunday evening.
The clash came as a row erupted between the leader of the train drivers’ union and the transport secretary, who had criticised a planned strike on the eve of the Eurovision song contest final for its impact on Ukraine.
Continue reading...Two trusts and one children’s hospital to receive emergency nursing staff after RCN had said there would be no derogations
The Royal College of Nurses appears to have U-turned on its decision to allow no exemptions to hospitals during this weekend’s strike action, with nurses now due to work in an emergency capacity in dozens of hospitals across England.
Nurses will be working across several NHS trusts – including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust, in London, and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust – in wards including intensive care and A&E. This is despite the RCN vowing when strike action was announced that exemptions would not be made for any hospitals.
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