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An estimated 66,000 women and girls in England and Wales have had their genitals forcibly mutilated, according to Department of Health figures due out this autumn. Women of all ages, some just babies, are forced to have part or all of their genitalia cut off and stitched up, without anaesthetic.
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The most radical reform of NHS services since 1948 - designed to halve the number of patients needing hospital care - is revealed today by the newly-appointed health minister, Sir Ara Darzi, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
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Hold your breath: nothing's sacred - The Guardian 11th July 2007
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Local hospitals face axe in plan to streamline London health services - The Times 11th July 2007
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Super GP surgeries 'will lead to gridlock' - The Telegraph 11th July 2007
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Local hospitals face axe in plan to streamline London health services - The Times 11th July 2007
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Super GP surgeries 'will lead to gridlock' - The Telegraph 11th July 2007
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New concerns are raised today that government officials attempted to cover up evidence that they could have stopped thousands of people becoming infected with HIV from contaminated blood supplies. Lord Owen, who was a Labour health minister in the 1970s, says he has unearthed the first concrete proof that officials knew more than 30 years ago that there was an increased risk of contracting hepatitis from imported blood products.
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Families should restrict themselves to having a maximum of two children to stabilise the effect on the environment of Britain's rapidly growing population, a thinktank warns today. According to the Optimum Population Trust, Britain's rising birth rate, currently growing at the highest rate for nearly 30 years, should be considered an environmental liability.
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Once again, Clare Allan (Do the drug companies takes us all for mugs?) eloquently points to the central problem in our mental health system - our domination by psychiatric classifications of mental illness, which are, for the most part, merely abstractions of convenience. As a consequence, we are beholden to a limited range of prescribed treatments - psychiatric and psychological - that are linked to these diagnoses and take little account of the idiosyncrasies and complexities of the individual presentation.
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And so, almost nine years after it embarked upon the exercise, the government has new mental health legislation. The third attempt to revamp the 1983 Mental Health Act duly cleared its remaining parliamentary stages last week and will be implemented in October next year. As Earl Howe, the Conservative spokesman in the Lords, put it: "We bid farewell to this bill with mixed emotions - apprehension, disappointment, gratitude and relief."
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See that weeping, shambling spectre lumbering towards you, Gordon, rattling its chains and growing larger by the minute? That's dementia, that is. And it's coming to get you. There is a good prospect these days that Gordon Brown and many others of us could live to be 85. If we do, roughly one in four of us will suffer senile dementia. Those who escape will know plenty who do not, and may well be caring for them. In the UK, 700,000 people have dementia and the figure will reach 1 million within the next few years, rising even more sharply as a percentage of the population.
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It may not be a hot summer. But it will still be a long and difficult one for up to 1 million teenagers, according to a report published today. A national inquiry into youth will say that hundreds of thousands of young people will be wandering the streets over the holidays because they are bored and there is nowhere else to go.
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Hospital staff gave the wrong treatment to the wrong patient on almost 25,000 occasions last year, leading to deaths, serious injury and long-term harm, official figures show. Errors in identifying patients led to at least 500 a week getting the wrong operation the wrong drugs or diagnostic tests, the National Patient Safety Agency said.
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People with a lot of moles on their skin are used to being told that they are at greater risk of cancer. But now they have reason to celebrate; research suggests they can look forward to a longer life. "Moley" people have a slightly higher risk of developing melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, but a study comparing more than 1,800 twins found that those with more moles have longer telomeres - a marker of biological ageing found in all cells.
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Could moles be the key to looking young? - Daily Mail 10th July 2007
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Could moles be the key to looking young? - Daily Mail 10th July 2007
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Men who are socially awkward and shun contact with people are more likely to die of heart disease than their more gregarious peers, according to research that sheds light on how personality can influence health.
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Shy men '50% more likely to die of heart disease' - Daily Mail 11th July 2007
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Shy men '50% more likely to die of heart disease' - Daily Mail 11th July 2007
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Will spending more public money on sport help to tackle obesity? No chance. Gerry Sutcliffe, the new Sports Minister, will soon discover one of Whitehall’s best-kept secrets: sporting participation has not budged since 1994 despite an extra £3 billion of investment through the lottery and millions more from the taxpayer.
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John Denham, the Higher Education Secretary, is piloting a Bill to improve grants for students from poorer backgrounds and to give graduates breaks from paying back their loans. The programme will also include Alan Johnson’s plans to review the health service, including the creation of an NHS constitution, aimed at improving the morale of staff.
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The medical profession is in desperate need of a fit-for-purpose moral code. How can we be prosecuting Dr Michael Munro for trying to alleviate suffering? (“Babies ‘given drug to hasten death’ ”, July 10) Only last week we heard Liz Penny’s harrowing experiences in your columns (times2, July 3). My wife has two parents in separate homes. My father-in-law, suffering from cerebrovascular disease, begged me to put him out of his misery last year. Since then he has lost the ability to move without two carers, cannot hear, cannot communicate his needs and is doubly incontinent. The NHS can keep these people alive but cannot give them a life worth living.
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The Medical Journalists’ Association has made an award to ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) for its campaign to ban smoking in public places (report, July 8). Although ASH may have embraced this policy in more recent times, the original initiative came in 1976-77 from the Department of Health, in which I served at that time. ASH made it quite clear then that they wanted nothing to do with such a policy lest it jeopardise other campaigns, especially one to ban all cigarette advertising.
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It cannot be denied that the new Smart Cycle from Fisher-Price lacks a couple of those defining features that it commonly lifts one’s heart to see on a child’s bike, namely, wheels. This, and the fact that it plugs into a television set, enabling the coddled young rider to traverse a variety of simulated terrains without leaving the sitting room, or even the spot, mean that the toy has had a mound of scorn heaped upon it even before its scheduled arrival in shops, at the end of this month.
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We all collude in the fashion world's obsession with size, says Sarah Mower. As for the exploitation of child models, she recommends passport controls at the catwalk to reduce the proliferation of size zero models When I was trying to check out of my hotel at the end of the haute couture shows in Paris last week having witnessed as many wince-makingly thin teenage models on the catwalk as ever, a wedding party got in my way. I looked up to see a little girl in a pink Chanel dress at the centre of attention.
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Some political sages will wonder whether Iain Duncan Smith was entirely sober on Tuesday when he unveiled suggestions to repair our 'broken society'.
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A dye added to sausages and burgers to make them look fresher was at the centre of a cancer scare last night. A European food watchdog said it was no longer safe to eat products containing the additive Red 2G after tests showed it caused cancer in rats and mice.
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Sausage additive linked to cancer - BBC Health News 10th July 2007
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Sausage additive linked to cancer - BBC Health News 10th July 2007
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Reducing junior doctors' hours has been disastrous for their training - and patients' health, says SIR ROY CALNE, one of Britain's most eminent surgeons. Here, he explains why bureaucracy is bad for patients. We made a great mistake when we cut junior doctors' hours. Three years ago, on August 1, 2004, the NHS was forced to implement European laws which meant we could no longer decide for ourselves what hours doctors worked.
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Sports hernias affect thousands of amateur footballers and runners and force many to give up the sport they love. Jon Swales, 36, a chartered engineer from Harrogate, North Yorks, had a sports hernia repair using a radical darning technique. He tells CAROL DAVIS about his experience, while his surgeon explains the procedure.
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Water used to be something you got from the tap to quench your thirst. But a new range of bottled waters promises much more, from lowering blood pressure to helping lose weight and combating stress. So do they really work?
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At school, Lizzie Jolley was envied by her classmates for her energy and sporting success. Picked for most sports teams every year, she swam, played netball, hockey and tennis and gained a Duke of Edinburgh gold award. At university, she added diving and sailing to her list of accomplishments. But within 18 months of graduating in 2001, she was so ill that there were days when she could barely struggle out of bed. Walking was difficult and serious exercise impossible.
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Three beautiful children, a wealthy and devoted partner, and the sort of millionaire trappings most women can only dream about: it's fair to say that Kelly Thompson had an idyllic lifestyle. Home was an electronically gated and fully staffed white-washed mansion in the Spanish playboy beach resort of Marbella.
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The scandal of dead nuclear workers' organs being taken without consent escalated yesterday as it emerged there may be hundreds more victims than previously thought. Relatives of at least 57 deceased employees of the Sellafield power plant had already been horrified to discover their corpses had been plundered for a secret research project on radiation poisoning.
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Organ removal inquiry net widens - BBC Health News 10th July 2007
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Nurses in England deserve to be paid the same as their Northern Ireland counterparts, their union has said. Earlier on Tuesday, NI Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said nurses would receive the full pay award recommended by the Independent Pay Review Body.
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International News
Sportsmen and women who use ice baths to prevent muscle soreness after exercise may be doing more harm than good, a study suggests. Ice baths have become a most fashionable way to recover after an intense game or race. Adherents of the therapy include Paula Radcliffe and the England rugby team.
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Sports star ice baths questioned - BBC Health News 10th July 2007
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Sports star ice baths questioned - BBC Health News 10th July 2007
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Acupuncture. Sitting up straight. A hard mattress. Everyone's got a pet cure for back pain. But what works - and what just makes it worse? The answers will surprise you... Back pain is the scourge of our increasingly sedentary society. According to charity BackCare, over onethird of the population (more than 17 million of us) have suffered back problems in the past year.
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Asian women who eat a Western-style diet high in meat, white bread, milk and puddings may be at higher risk of breast cancer, research has suggested. A study of 1,500 Chinese women showed those who ate a "meat-sweet" diet were twice as likely to develop the disease as those on a vegetable-based diet.
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Cheshire and Merseyside News
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RADICAL changes to the region’s ambulance service will mean faster response times to emergency calls, a senior official said last night. Paul Ferguson, Merseyside and Cheshire’s area director for the North West Ambulance Service, said a pilot scheme to be trialled in Wirral next month will be “hugely beneficial”.
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LIVERPOOL firm behind the UK’s first website dedicated to discrimination law says claims of ageism could now cost companies dear. Experts at Brabners Chaffe Street, which runs discriminationonline.com, warns businesses found in breach of new rules could be facing compensation claims running into seven figures.
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PATIENTS in Ormskirk have won a major victory in their campaign for better hospital servies. The town, which has no A&E provision for people over the age of 16, is to get a new urgent care unit. The unit at Ormskirk hospital is designed to stop adults having to travel to Southport hospital for casualty services.
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THOUSANDS of smokers are expected to quit in West Lancashire as a direct result of the new ban, experts said today. Health chiefs said they hoped young people in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk would be particularly helped to quit the habit.
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FORMER Liverpool FC manager Gerard Houllier was today returning to the hospital that saved his life, to open a new operating theatre. He was opening the state-of-the-art operating room at the Cardiothoracic Centre in Broadgreen.
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A MERSEYSIDE man waiting for a triple heart by-pass op needed oxygen after helping deliver his daughter. Garston market trader Francis Graham’s baby Ella was supposed to be born in the local hospital.
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CHILDHOOD obesity and alcoholism in Wirral will be tackled by a £10m investment from the Primary Care Trust. Other health services to be improved with the cash include clearing waiting lists, expanding heart centres and providing more equipment for GP practices such as blood testing and respiratory machines. Additional funding is being provided to improve podiatry services so that all patients in the borough will be able to obtain the same level of service irrespective of where they live. And following assessment, on-going treatment will be offered to all patients with a medical need, such as those patients with diabetes.
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IT'S OFTEN said that God moves in mysterious ways - and it would appear the powers-that-be at Wirral Council do, too. Readers will remember that last week saw the introduction of the nationwide ban on smoking in public places, causing both consternation and celebration, depending on your point of view.
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CANCER patients will refuse treatment because of a row over where their operations will take place. Victims of prostate cancer in Winsford are threatening to refuse an operation if they do not receive keyhole surgery.
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Podcasts reveal more about NHS - Northwich Guardian 10th July 2007
LOCAL residents can now find out how their taxes are being invested in the NHS by watching a series of podcasts on the North West health authority's website. The podcasts aim to give people an understanding of what is happening within their local NHS. So far, non-executive director for NHS North West, Sally Cheshire, director of finance, Mark Ogden, chief executive Mike Farrar and chair Sir David Henshaw have all featured.
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Cumbria and Lancashire News
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AN army veteran issued a parting shot at social services at his wife's funeral - saying they should be ashamed of themselves. Dennis Cramp, 81, had fought a bitter battle with the authorities over his wife Maria's care before she died last week. He even kidnapped her from the care home she was being kept in because he said she wanted to be at home.
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I BELIEVE that most graduating medical students swear to some form of oath before they go out to practice medicine although it is no longer obligatory for the Hippocratic Oath to be taken by physicians. There is however, a code of medical ethics which we expect all of our medical staff to abide by.
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The scandal of dead nuclear workers' organs being taken without consent escalated yesterday as it emerged there may be hundreds more victims than previously thought. Relatives of at least 57 deceased employees of the Sellafield power plant had already been horrified to discover their corpses had been plundered for a secret research project on radiation poisoning.
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Organ removal inquiry net widens - BBC Health News 10th July 2007
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Greater Manchester News
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Helen steps out to beat cancer - Manchester Evening News 10th July 2007
CANCER nurse Helen Ferns has helped hundreds of people beat the disease - but she was devastated to be diagnosed with the condition herself. Helen, 39, said: "Even though I work with people every single day who have cancer, when I was given the diagnosis I just felt total disbelief."
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Smokers doing harm to others - The Bolton News 10th July 2007
Helen steps out to beat cancer - Manchester Evening News 10th July 2007
CANCER nurse Helen Ferns has helped hundreds of people beat the disease - but she was devastated to be diagnosed with the condition herself. Helen, 39, said: "Even though I work with people every single day who have cancer, when I was given the diagnosis I just felt total disbelief."
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Smokers doing harm to others - The Bolton News 10th July 2007
A friend of mine works with heroin addicts. One of them has no intention of giving up. He doesn't see anything wrong with it and is quite happy to continue taking heroin. In fact, he can't understand why he isn't allowed to go into a pub, watch a band, talk with his friends, socialise - and fix up at the same time.
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Which direction for hospital? - Altrincham Messenger 10th July 2007
THE Board members of Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust acknowledged that although 84.7 per cent of respondents to its public consultation wanted the wards re-reopened at Altrincham General Hospital (AGH), the executives on the Board voted that the wards remain closed because of patient safety' and financial costs'.
Full links to the articles detailed can be found at www(dot) fade the blog 2 (dot)blogspot (dot)com, This has been a Podcast of Another 15 Minutes ... Health News from the Fade Library.
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