Nhs

So we are all going to have to pay for fatties to have stomach bands and bypasses, are we? It may be ‘cost-effective’ to treat the obese before they go on to develop diabetes and other medical problems, but I’m not sure how much sympathy they will get when we already hear about cancer patients having operations delayed and drugs withheld because of stretched NHS budgets. According to the OECD, Hungarians are the most obese people in the EU, followed by Brits. Rather surprisingly, Romanians are the least fat. Surprising, because on a recent holiday to the island of Lefkada, there were a huge number of Bulgarians, Serbs and Romanians.

Every so often when ministers are considering a policy, they send a little kite up to see how it’s received. Sometimes it gets hit by a lightning bolt of fury from a party’s target voters, and is never heard of again. Sometimes it flutters about and no-one plays a blind bit of notice. And sometimes the kite gets rapturous applause. There seems to be a mixed response to the kite flown today that people with anxiety and depression could be forced to have a talking therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy or risk losing their benefits. On the one hand, it’s welcome that ministers want to help people with mental

In England, success in life is bound up with where you went to school. In Wales, where I come from, the standard of education can be so miserable that you’d do better to get expelled. I did. I’d just spent three days in ‘isolation’ in my south Wales comprehensive — banished to a cubicle with a CCTV camera — for misbehaviour. As I left the grounds, I lit a cigarette. A teacher accosted me. I got lippy and she smacked me across the face. I was expelled soon after. Thank God. If you want good schooling in Wales, you’d be best to go private. If you’re taken ill, make sure

The NHS has released the findings of its investigations into Jimmy Savile’s relationship with several hospitals and the accusations of abuse. Leeds General Infirmary has been the location of the most shocking incidents, which occurred from 1962 to 2009. Victims have reported abuses ranging from inappropriate comments to sexual assault and rape. Here are the five things you need to know about the latest Savile revelations: 1. Savile ‘interfered with the bodies of deceased patients’ Long-circulated rumours about Savile and necrophilia appear to have some credence, according to the Leeds report. It appears his unfettered access to the Leeds General Infirmary led to an interest in the mortuary which  ‘was

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Jeremy Hunt has taken up this mantra with the launch of the NHS’s Accountability Hub today. As well as offering information about your nearest GP or hospital, the NHS Choices website is now full of patient safety indicators which, according to the Department of Health, offer an ‘unprecedented amount of patient safety information to allow patients, regulators and staff to see safety performance across a range of indicators.’ All sounds like a good idea, so I had a poke around to see how much information was available on two hospitals I’ve had the pleasure of visiting — one in London, one

It was Janet Tracey’s family who brought about a change in the law regarding Do Not Resuscitate notices on patient’s notes in hospital. Thanks to their efforts, hospitals will now have to consult patients and their families before instructing medics that they shouldn’t go out of their way to provide life-saving treatment. Mrs Tracey had made perfectly clear that she wanted to be in on her own case; didn’t matter – she got a DNR notice anyway. I’m not sure whether I was in quite this situation a couple of years ago when my mother was in St Mary’s Paddington after a fall. She succumbed to an infection which she

There is really no question about whether it is best for babies to be breast-fed, at least for the first few weeks of life. Plenty of research from around the world has proved conclusively that breast-fed babies, who receive all the mother’s antibodies from the colostrum (produced during the first few days) and then the milk, have a better resistance to infections and viruses, and get them more mildly if they do succumb. They have fewer allergies, have a 20 per cent lower risk than formula-fed babies of dying between the ages of 28 days and one year, and may be protected against some diseases that strike later. Breast-feeding also

Finding a way to raise taxes that is popular is, for some on the centre-left, the Holy Grail. As the well connected Andrew Grice reports in The Independent today, a growing number of people on the Labour side are attracted to the idea of an NHS tax. Their logic is that the public value the NHS so wouldn’t mind paying more for it. They point out that when Gordon Brown raised National Insurance to fund extra spending on the health service there was none of the backlash you would normally expect to a tax rise. But the reality is that the introduction of a new NHS tax won’t be matched