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That members of the public value access to in-person GP appointments sounds like a statement of the obvious. But the findings of an Institute for Government report about general practice in England have more complex implications too. One striking finding is that waits for appointments seem to matter less than is often assumed. Successive governments have pushed for same-day consultations. If this was done to please the public, the research suggests they should not have bothered. Surprisingly, it found no statistically significant relationship between patient satisfaction and length of wait. For many people, there is no substitute for a face-to-face conversation with the family doctor who they may have known for years. A higher number of online and telephone consultations is correlated with lower satisfaction. The shift away from in-person consultations, which accelerated during the pandemic and has not reversed, has coincided with falling confidence in general practice – though the reduction on spending on primary care, relative to hospitals, must also be factored in.
Appointments with other staff do not boost patient satisfaction to anything like the same degree. Once again, this finding raises a question over recent policy, which has been to substantially increase the “direct patient care” workforce, including pharmacists, in England’s 6,200 GP surgeries. The most popular appointments of all are those in smaller practices with higher numbers of GP partners. People’s preferences are not, in themselves, a mandate for change. This study found that practices with higher satisfaction scores also meet more targets. But measuring outcomes in primary care is complicated and previous research has raised doubts about some of the care offered by the smallest practices.
Continue reading...With two small kids and a dog to take care of, I often struggle to look after myself. Self-care apps promise to help – if you can handle the quests, magic potions and rainbow stones. I put four of them to the test
The other night, I didn’t moisturise before bed. The baby had just woken and was crying for a feed. I didn’t want him to wake the toddler he shares a room with, and I couldn’t, in that intensely fraught moment, locate my Elizabeth Arden.
We all find it hard, at times, to fit in self-care. But if there’s one thing I’ve noticed since becoming a mum of two small children, it’s that even the most basic level of personal care requires military-level planning. Often, I pour from an empty cup because I haven’t had time – or, more likely, I’ve simply forgotten – to refill it.
Continue reading...From ‘wellness farms’ to expanded involuntary commitment policies, the US is embracing psychiatric incarceration under the guise of compassion
Across the country, a troubling trend is accelerating: the return of institutionalization – rebranded, repackaged and framed as “modern mental health care”. From Governor Kathy Hochul’s push to expand involuntary commitment in New York to Robert F Kennedy Jr’s proposal for “wellness farms” under his Make America Healthy Again (Maha) initiative, policymakers are reviving the logics of confinement under the guise of care.
These proposals may differ in form, but they share a common function: expanding the state’s power to surveil, detain and “treat” marginalized people deemed disruptive or deviant. Far from offering real support, they reflect a deep investment in carceral control – particularly over disabled, unhoused, racialized and LGBTQIA+ communities. Communities that have often seen how the framing of institutionalization as “treatment” obscures both its violent history and its ongoing legacy. In doing so, these policies erase community-based solutions, undermine autonomy, and reinforce the very systems of confinement they claim to move beyond.
Continue reading...A psychologist reveals five questions children can ask – and how to answer them
• Can I protect my seven-year-old daughter from the impossible beauty standards of the fashion world?
If your child is upset because a classmate has been unkind about their body, it’s natural to want to ease their distress with: “You’re not fat, darling, you’re beautiful!” However, trying to reassure them in this way is more likely to undermine their body confidence. First, it reinforces the message that being fat is bad, thereby perpetuating stigma, instilling a belief that only some body types are acceptable, and eliciting fear around weight gain. Second, it focuses on bigger bodies being the problem, rather than name-calling and stigmatising behaviour. And third, it insinuates that you can’t be fat and beautiful.
Continue reading...Solomon says the scale and depravity of what he was exposed to was far darker than he had ever imagined
When Solomon* strode into the gleaming Octagon tower in Accra, Ghana, for his first day as a Meta content moderator, he was bracing himself for difficult but fulfilling work, purging social media of harmful content.
But after just two weeks of training, the scale and depravity of what he was exposed to was far darker than he ever imagined.
Continue reading...The actor announced the change on her podcast. Apparently this is international news – and it has a serious side
You’re going to want to sit down for this one, because there’s a lot to digest. Gwyneth Paltrow, who has consciously uncoupled from multiple food groups in the past, is bringing pasta back into her life. And she can have a little bread and cheese, too, as a treat.
Continue reading...This week’s oral immunotherapy breakthrough is part of wider surge of interest in developing treatments
A severe food allergy is among the few conditions that can propel a person from robust health to unconsciousness within minutes, and the risk of accidental exposure often casts a shadow of anxiety over those affected.
But change is afoot, with a groundbreaking trial this week showing that two-thirds of adults with severe peanut allergies can be desensitised through clinically supervised daily exposure. The approach – oral immunotherapy – is already successfully used in children and is among a wave of treatments on the horizon aimed at reducing the burden of allergies – and potentially curing them.
Continue reading...The health secretary has pledged to fight chronic illness, but experts say he risks increasing it with department cuts
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, entered office with a pledge to tackle the US’s chronic disease epidemic and give infectious disease a “break”. In at least one of those goals, Kennedy has been expeditious.
Experts said as Kennedy makes major cuts in public health in his first weeks in office, the infrastructure built to mitigate Covid-19 has become a clear target – an aim that has the dual effect of weakening immunization efforts as the US endures the largest measles outbreak since 2000.
Continue reading...‘Shocking blind spot’ in data collection comes despite ‘well-documented racial disparities in maternity care’
The NHS is facing criticism for not recording the ethnicity of people who sue it over poor maternity care, despite black, Asian and minority ethnic women experiencing much greater harm during childbirth.
Health experts, patient safety campaigners and lawyers claim racial disparities in maternity care are so stark that NHS bodies in England must start collating details of people who take legal action to help ensure services improve.
Continue reading...Party’s education spokesperson says Farage’s comments about doctors over-diagnosing children shows he wants to cut spending
John Swinney, the first minister of Scotland, is attending the funeral of the Pope on Saturday, the Scottish government has announced. In a statement Swinney said:
His Holiness Pope Francis was a voice for peace, tolerance and reconciliation who had a natural ability to connect with people of all ages, nationalities and beliefs.
On behalf of the people of Scotland, I am deeply honoured to attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome to express my sorrow, thanks and deep respect for the compassion, assurance and hope that he brought to so many.
Eating the Tories for breakfast. @Keir_Starmer
Continue reading...Reform leader accused of ‘wildly inaccurate’ remarks as he complains about UK creating ‘class of victims’
Nigel Farage says the UK is “massively overdiagnosing those with mental illness problems” and creating a “class of victims”.
In comments, which have drawn criticism from campaigners and charities, the leader of Reform UK said it was too easy to get a mental health diagnosis from a GP.
Continue reading...Up to 4,000 patients a year with early stage of disease could receive ribociclib, but charities want wider access to drug
Thousands of women with early breast cancer could be offered a drug to stop the cancer returning, after the medicines watchdog approved its use in England.
Up to 4,000 patients a year could be given ribociclib alongside hormone therapy, for hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer, which despite initial treatment has a higher risk of returning.
Cancer present in at least four lymph nodes.
Cancer present in one to three lymph nodes that is either grade 3 (more advanced), or has a primary tumour at least 5cm in size.
Continue reading...Researchers left at US climate agency say drastic cuts could leave air ‘not breathable’ and water ‘not drinkable’
The Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory”, workers warn, that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”.
Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are warning of the drastic impacts of cuts at the agency on science, research, and efforts to protect natural resources.
Continue reading...Researchers say mutations more often found in younger patients’ tumours caused by toxin secreted by E coli strains
Childhood exposure to a toxin produced by bacteria in the bowel may be contributing to the rise of colorectal cancer in under-50s around the world, researchers say.
Countries, including some in Europe and Oceania, have witnessed an increase in young adults with bowel cancer in recent decades, with some of the steepest increases reported in England, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Chile.
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