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The one that won't go away - The Guardian 24th October 2007
David Steel changed history by steering through the landmark Abortion Act. But, 40 years on, the issue is still firmly at the centre of the political map. Lucy Ward reports
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Forty years after Steel's bill, is there a case for rethink on abortion law? - The Guardian 24th October 2007
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Too many abortions: Lord Steel - The Guardian 24th October 2007
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Primarolo for current abortion time limits - The Telegraph 24th October 2007
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Primarolo for current abortion time limits - The Telegraph 24th October 2007
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Immigrants contribute more in taxation and are often more highly skilled than the rest of the workforce, yet they are putting local services under increasing strain. This was the conclusion reached by two separate government reports on the impacts of migration published last week.
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Record immigration sees UK population soar - The Telegraph 24th October 2007
Charitable donations to medical research now account for a third of public expenditure in this vital area. Sophie Petit-Zeman reports on how information sharing between charities will help achieve greater success
To work for organisations catering for people on the margins of society requires a special dedication - and public support is hard-won
What is Making Space? Making Space is dedicated to improving the long-term welfare of people who have mental-health problems and those who care for them. My role is to lead the organisation, providing clear objectives and preparing it for the future.
More mothers are finding part-time work thanks to an enterprise with its roots in playground chatter. Every time Karen Mattison dropped her kids off, she noticed the same conversation coming up at the school gates: why was it so difficult for mothers to find flexible part-time work?
Give the users and practitioners a voice, says Peter Beresford The General Social Care Council's statement of roles and tasks is the first official report on social work in England for nearly a generation. The 1983 Barclay Report couldn't reach agreement and was largely ignored. This new report, Social Work at its Best, launched at the National Children and Adult Services Conference last week, has already received a two cheers response, dismissed in some quarters as "wet" and "woolly".
We constantly hear reports of poor quality social care in the UK, but when Harry Ferguson's mother was terminally ill he was astonished by the compassion and professionalism of her nurses and social workers
Health secretary Alan Johnson's speech to last week's National Children and Adult Services Conference was certainly brief, but a leading social care figure's "content-free" verdict was a tad unfair. Owing to an apparent failure of Whitehall departments to get their ducks in a row, the planned unveiling of protocols on joint working was withdrawn from the speech at the last minute, leaving the minister nothing to announce. But he did put down an important marker about the promised green paper on reform of adult care funding.
Following his statement that black people are less intelligent than white people (Report, October 20), perhaps the geneticist Dr James Watson should be reminded of his earlier - and far more astute - comment about the limitations of scientists: "One could not be a successful scientist without realising that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."
I am writing to set the record straight following Richard Burdett's article on 'the homelessness industry' (Industrial disease). Homeless Link is the national voice for organisations working to tackle homelessness and to help people who are homeless move on in their lives. Our members comprise organisations of all sizes, local and national, and include organisations of homeless people, those run by former homeless people and those purely voluntary or faith based.
Why are we asking this now? Film director David Lynch and Sixties pop star Donovan have teamed up to launch a campaign to encourage children to meditate in school. In a series of talks , the pair will promote the technique of transcendental meditation practised by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and popularised by the Beatles 40 years ago.Another TM convert to have just emerged is Joaquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique, who has been honoured with the Achievement in African Leadership award.
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School timetable: history, biology, maths, inner bliss - The Times 24th October 2007
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Flu vaccination is failing to save the lives of older people who are the focus of intensive annual campaigns, an official study suggests. More than 15 million people in England have the flu vaccine each winter, but the £150 milion programme has little effect in reducing hospital admissions among the elderly, researchers say. The study, by the Health Protection Agency and British universities, will fuel doubts over the effectiveness of the vaccine in older people, following a review that claimed the supporting evidence for mass vaccination had been “greatly exaggerated”.
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Winter flu jabs for pensioners 'don't reduce hospital admissions' - Daily Mail 24th October 2007
A woman in charge of an NHS trust where 90 patients died in a superbug outbreak was interviewed for the job of running four hospitals in Greater Manchester. Rose Gibb resigned as chief executive of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in Kent on October 5. At least 90 people died from the spread of Clostridium difficile in two big outbreaks at the trust while Ms Gibb was its chief executive. In February she applied to run Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and was shortlisted for the post. She left her £150,000-a-year job at the Kent trust by mutual arrangement. Her departure prompted Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, to order the trust to withold any severance payment due to her, pending legal advice.
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Bug hospital boss applied for job - BBC Health News 23rd October 2007
One country, two systems was the formula the Chinese Government once used to explain how the rampant capitalism of Hong Kong could coexist within the ambit of a communist regime. That description can now be applied to Britain – not to its economy, but to its health service. The NHS north and south of the Border has come to differ so markedly that it has been attacked for operating what one commentator describes as “medical apartheid”. If you are ill, old, infirm and English, you will ask, in vain, for the following benefits: free prescriptions for the chronically ill, free personal care for the elderly, free access to drugs that treat advanced lung cancer, multiple myeloma, Alzheimer’s and some forms of brain tumour.
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New super-regulator will have power to close hospitals within 24 hours - The Times 24th October 2007
Wards and even entire hospitals could be closed within 24 hours after spot-checks by the new super-regulator, Alan Johnson will disclose today. The Health Secretary is also expected to reveal in a Commons statement that the new inspectorate will have powers to sack doctors and trust chief executives immediately, The Times has learnt.
Ultrasis is a technology company whose main product, an interactive computer program aimed at treating mental health patients, became available for prescription on the NHS in March.
The chairman of HBOS tells a conference in Scotland of his fight with clinical depression and urges a rethink in attitudes to sufferers Lord Stevenson of Coddenham is head of one of the biggest banks in the world and has almost unparalleled influence across British business, arts and politics. He is, perhaps, the ultimate high achiever. But yesterday the Scots-born chairman of HBOS spoke candidly about his experience of clinical depression.
Seems that Roald Dahl had it right, way back in 1964: our children are destined to turn into a great blob of spoilt, lazy, TV-obsessed porkers. When the fabulously politically incorrect author foresaw a world of slothful and greedy fat kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory “What do you get when you guzzle down sweets, eating as much as an elephant eats?” he probably didn’t imagine that Augustus Gloop would become a key plank of government policy, weighed and worried over, four decades later.
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Fighting obesity with education - The Times 24th October 2007
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Health scare as tainted lamb is found being sold in supermarkets - The Times 24th October 2007
Batches of lamb containing illegal veterinary drug residues that can make consumers ill are on sale in supermarkets. There is a particular danger to any pregnant woman who has been exposed to regular doses of the drug, as high residue levels can affect foetal development. The Food Standards Agency has ordered a search and confiscation of this meat to protect consumer health.
British scientists began the largest investigation yet into how genes influence Alzheimer’s disease yesterday. A research team at Cardiff University has received £1.3 million from the Wellcome Trust to conduct the first genetic survey using a new technique which identifies how inheritance can predispose sufferers to the disease.
Rothwell v Chemical and Insulating Co Ltd and Another; Topping v Benchtown Ltd (formerly Jones Bros Preston Ltd); Johnston v NEI International Combustion Ltd; Grieves v F. T. Everard and Sons Ltd and Another in the House of Lords
A retired professor was so appalled by the dirty conditions she found during a stay in hospital that she wrote a dossier about it. Clare Wenger, 71, who asked to be discharged early because of the filth, was so shocked by the risk of infection that she sent health bosses and politicians a 4,000-word report.
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Extracts from Prof Wenger's 'dirty dossier' - The Telegraph 24th October 2007
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Patient's dossier on 'dirty' ward - BBC Health News 23rd October 2007
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Motherly advice to rub aches and pains better could well be true, according to new scientific research. Healing by gentle touching can not only soothe bumps and bruises, it is also said to reduce stress and pain.
A man has challenged hospital bosses to reverse their ban on fathers cutting their baby's umbilical cords. Nick Bird said South Tyneside NHS Trust is the only one in the country to prohibit the practice, which he believes will be a vital part of the bonding process when his daughter is born next month.
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The vast bill for gold-plated pensions owed to Health Service staff soared by more than 30 per cent last year, official figures revealed last night. The total liability for their pension funds rose by £52billion in one year to reach £218billion.
The number of pregnant women contracting superbugs on maternity wards has risen by a third in a year. Last year, 480 mothers were infected with either MRSA or C. Diff, up from 356 the year before.
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As counterfeit medicines reach local chemists, are YOU at risk? - Daily Mail 23rd October 2007
Like many men suffering from erectile dysfunction, Steven didn't tell anyone about his problem. The 44-year-old financial lawyer was too embarrassed. After months of making excuses to his wife, he decided to take action. But instead of going to see his doctor, he turned to the internet.
Skin cancer rates are rising, with the most dangerous - malignant melanoma - responsible for 2,000 deaths a year. Although current scans can reveal if the cancer has spread, a new technique will detect this even earlier. Here, Kirsten Richardson, 34, a housewife from Epping, Essex, tells ISLA WHITCROFT about her experience, while her surgeon explains the procedure.
One in three women with thinning bones would claim to be heavy drinkers to get drugs for their condition. Under draft guidelines, they would qualify for treatment to prevent osteoporosis ahead of other patients as drinking increases the risk of the disease.
Too many people with mental health problems are ending up in prison when what they need is specialist care, a Prisons Inspectorate report suggests. Despite the ongoing concern about overcrowding, prison had become the "default" option for many who posed little public risk, it said.
British-born medics should not be given training priority over foreign doctors already in the UK, the British Medical Association (BMA) has declared. A government consultation has been launched after a report said thousands of UK doctors could not find jobs because of soaring foreign applicants.
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We live in a society saturated with sex, but disabled people can often feel they've not been invited to the party. Some feel prostitution might provide the answer. But is visiting a brothel the right thing to do? Taking your first steps. Riding a bike. Your first kiss. The first time you have sex. All standard rites of passage for anyone growing up in much of the world.
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International Health News
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One of the few journalists in Gaza reports on the Fatah-imposed doctors' strike in force last month for a series of exclusive Guardian films
It is the perfect excuse for any child who cannot bear to eat their greens - an aversion to vegetables can be in the genes. Research shows that our preference for foods from broccoli to garlic has more to do with tastes we inherited from our parents than the contents of the school dinner menus of our childhood.
Better educated dementia victims go downhill faster than those with less schooling because they manage to "mask" the disease in its early stages, scientists believe. They found that university graduates suffer a memory decline that is 50 per cent faster than someone with a minimal education.
Broccoli extract could be better protection against skin cancer than sunscreen, scientists claimed yesterday. They said that tests on volunteers showed that redness caused by ultraviolet rays was markedly reduced in skin treated with the extract.
A wine glass-shaped device that works by squeezing the heart may be a safer and faster way to treat cardiac arrest patients. A sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart's electrical system malfunctions and it stops beating. It can often occur after a heart attack, which is caused when a blood vessel becomes blocked, interrupting blood flow and damaging the heart muscle.
People are getting fatter in all parts of the world, with the possible exception of south and east Asia, a one-day global snapshot shows. Between half and two-thirds of men and women in 63 countries across five continents - not including the US - were overweight or obese in 2006.
Brain scans can show how the brain gets "tired and over-emotional" when someone is deprived of sleep. US researchers kept volunteers awake for 35 hours and found huge increases in brain activity when shown images designed to make them angry or sad.
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Scientist plotting genetic revolution - BBC Health News 23rd October 2007
He is perhaps the world's most controversial scientist. Dr Craig Venter is the only person to have published his entire genetic code - and famous for the ferocious race to get there first. He used faster, some say "dirtier" science, and private money, to win that race - against a lumbering scientific establishment.
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Cheshire and Merseyside Health News
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LIVERPOOL residents are being asked for their views on a £100m health strategy for the city. Liverpool’s primary care trust has created plans aiming to move services out of hospitals and into the community. The Outside of Hospital scheme was developed from the PCT’s Big Health Debate last year in which 10,000 people took part in a public consultation. Proposals include new health centres that will house dental, sexual health and X-ray services under one roof.
SHOCKING figures today revealed nearly a quarter of children are now obese in some areas of Liverpool. Children’s fitness levels are also plummeting, with tests showing some girls are only able to run 300 yards. New statistics released by Liverpool council showed Norris Green to have the highest number of very fat boys, with a shocking 23% clinically obese. For girls, Princes Park was the worst, also recording 23%.
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Child obesity ‘blackspots’ reveal extent of epidemic - Liverpool Daily Post 23rd October 2007
THE NHS in the North West failed to spend almost £200m last year – yet hospitals in Merseyside are still making cuts and patients are still being denied treatment. New figures seen by the Liverpool Daily Post also show the Strategic Health Authority expects the “unspent” figure to rise to more than £200m by the end of this financial year – more than any other region in the country. While the Audit Commission will today praise NHS Northwest, chaired by former Liverpool council chief executive Sir David Henshaw, for its strong financial position, critics last night said it came at the expense of hospital beds and potentially life-saving treatment.
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Health trust vows: We will provide new dental service - Liverpool Daily Post 23rd October 2007
A WIRRAL town left without dental care after a dentist retired has been promised a new service in the New Year. Wirral Primary Care Trust has said it is “fully committed” to reinstating a local dental service in Greasby. Earlier this month, Greasby dentist Clive Morgan, 58, said he must retire early as a result of a £20,000 “clawback” bill from the PCT.
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Dental patients told to have patience - Wirral Globe 23rd October 2007
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Death of man who spent £70,000 on cancer drug - Liverpool Echo 23rd October 2007
A TERMINALLY-ILL Merseyside businessman who spent £70,000 to aid his fight against cancer has died. Keith Ditchfield, 53, travelled Europe looking for treatment for his aggressive renal cancer after the NHS in Lancashire, where he was living, refused to pay for Nexavar, a treatment which helped prolong his life.
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Businessman who spent £70,000 on cancer drug loses his fight for life - Liverpool Daily Post 23rd October 2007
HE’S big, he’s red and his feet stick out the bed. So they say on the terraces but Peter Crouch got the chance to prove the fans right at a Wirral cancer centre. The Liverpool FC and England striker toured Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology yesterday, meeting patients and staff.
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Liverpool star striker helps cancer hospital reach charity goal - Liverpool Daily Post 23rd October 2007
A NURSE who slapped a patient and told another to "talk to the hand," was this week found guilty of misconduct. Amanda Carolyn Pote from Birkenhead swore repeatedly in front of residents and colleagues at Belvedere Nursing Home in Wallasey.
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Attempted murder nurse struck off - Northwich Guardian 23rd October 2007
A NURSE at Leighton Hospital jailed for trying to kill two elderly patients has been banned from practicing medicine. Barbara Salisbury, 50, was sentenced to five years in 2004 for attempting to murder two elderly patients in a bid to free up beds at the Crewe hospital.
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Cumbria and Lancashire Health News
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A TERMINALLY-ILL Merseyside businessman who spent £70,000 to aid his fight against cancer has died. Keith Ditchfield, 53, travelled Europe looking for treatment for his aggressive renal cancer after the NHS in Lancashire, where he was living, refused to pay for Nexavar, a treatment which helped prolong his life.
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GRIEVING relatives in parts of Cumbria are being forced to wait more than six months to find out how their loved ones died. And there has been a warning that the amount of pending inquests will rise after the number of coroners in the county was cut from three to two.
A BURNLEY-born medical expert is leading the fight against prostate cancer. Former Barden High School pupil Ahsanul Haq, a leading consultant urologist, is providing the expertise behind Lancashire Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust's new £100,000 laser surgery.
A team dedicated to reducing the number of accidents has won a major national award for its cutting-edge work that saves lives. East Lancashire Primary Care Trust's Accident Prevention Team beat off competition from across the country to receive the top honour at the 2007 Public Servants of the Year Awards at a ceremony in London.
A BLACKBURN doctor has denied sexually touching three in-patients on a gynaecological ward at Burnley General Hospital. Married father or two, Mannan Masud, 41, is alleged to have fondled the "vulnerable" women, all who were recovering from operations, by purporting to be their medic. Masud, of London Walk, pleaded not guilty to three charges of sexually touching a woman over 16 on August 20.
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Care staff vow to fight on - Lancashire Telegraph 23rd October 2007
WORRIED care staff voiced their anger at the possible privatisation of their service tonight. Union members vowed to fight the controversial changes, which were given the green light by Blackburn with Darwen's ruling councillors last week.
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Greater Manchester Health News
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DIABETIC retinopathy is one of the most common causes of blindness in the UK. Retinopathy means damage to the tiny blood vessels (capillaries) that nourish the retina, the tissues in the back of the eye that deal with light. Damage to these vessels causes blood leakage (haemorrhage), which may be small and confined to the retina, or may extend forward into the jelly that fills the main cavity of the eye (the vitreous gel).
THERE were 96 cases of Clostridium difficile in Trafford over the past six months. Latest figures reveal 63 cases at Trafford General Hospital and the remainder in the community, between April and September.
THE MP for Stretford and Urmston visited a Trafford Park supermarket to help raise awareness of breast cancer. Bev Hughes, the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, went to Asda on October 16 to help with bag packing in aid of the company's chosen Tickled Pink charities.
A woman in charge of an NHS trust where 90 patients died in a superbug outbreak was interviewed for the job of running four hospitals in Greater Manchester. Rose Gibb resigned as chief executive of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in Kent on October 5. At least 90 people died from the spread of Clostridium difficile in two big outbreaks at the trust while Ms Gibb was its chief executive. In February she applied to run Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and was shortlisted for the post. She left her £150,000-a-year job at the Kent trust by mutual arrangement. Her departure prompted Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, to order the trust to withold any severance payment due to her, pending legal advice.
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