Thousands died because of this summer’s extreme hot weather – caused by the climate crisis. Anita Bazell, taken to hospital during June’s heatwave with a body temperature of 41.2C, was one of them

Anita Bazell had never coped with the heat very well, her family said. So they were worried about her when temperatures across the UK soared to record highs of 35C (95F) in May, and then again in June.

She was living in a nursing home in Southampton near her family, who had struggled to care for her at home due to her declining mobility. Although there were air conditioning units in the communal rooms, there was not one in Anita’s room, which was on the third floor.

Sarah Jones tells MPs ‘those responsible should expect to face the consequences’

Healey says Andy Burnham set out in his statement to MPs last week what he thought had gone wrong

The fundamentals of our economy [were] hollowed out through a series of past policy decisions, political power was centralised, weakening the relationships between the people, the businesses and the institutions who can make things happen beyond Whitehall. The economic enablers were privatised and outsourced, leaving accountability to a thicket of arm’s length bodies and regulators, too often without the predictability or the pace that underpins a thriving market economy. And our country was deindustrialised as the cost to make anything, to build anything here soared, and our dependence on unreliable sources grew, including in areas critical to our national security and sovereignty.

Let me be clear, I recognise that the costs of business, its energy bills, regulation, burdens, planning constraints, labour costs, have grown since Covid and I want to draw the line.

And whether it is the cost of business or the cost of living, the only way we deal with these in the long term is growth.

With melanoma cases rising, the UK must learn from public health campaigns elsewhere

New climate risks bring with them new health risks. An exceptionally warm and dry summer in Europe meant that outdoor workers, and those who choose to spend leisure time in the sun, were confronted more directly than usual by the need to protect their skin from ultraviolet (UV) radiation, as well as avoid dehydration and overheating. In the UK, the annual total of new melanoma cases was reported to have risen above 20,000 for the first time earlier this year (the two most common forms of skin cancer, basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma, are less dangerous).

As with other cancers, the increase in cases reflects an ageing and a growing population. A third of those diagnosed with cancer in the UK are over 75. But with the NHS struggling to cope with the number of those seeking treatment, and melanoma the fifth most common cancer – after prostate, breast, lung and bowel (and excluding other skin cancers) – there are growing calls for behaviour change aligned to stronger public health measures. In May, a group of MPs proposed a ban on advertising sunbeds, which – along with sunburn and tanning – are linked with a raised risk of skin cancer. Last year, a group of experts advocated banning their commercial use altogether, as in Australia and Brazil.

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Tackling social and economic conditions must come first, writes Dr Louise Lawson. Plus letters from James Hibberd, Bob Forster and Dr Giles Youngs

Devi Sridhar is right to welcome free cholesterol testing on the NHS in England and blood pressure checks in pharmacies. Such measures can help identify health risks earlier. However, I would take issue with her suggestion that a “health MOT” is “precisely what prevention is all about” (Free cholesterol tests on the NHS are great – but here’s the five-point health MOT I’d really like to see, 2 September).

Sridhar’s proposed five-point health MOT is undoubtedly valuable, but it is better understood as identifying risk rather than preventing disease. Prevention is what comes next: enabling people to make changes that improve health and reduce that risk. Public health has long distinguished between upstream factors, such as poverty, housing, employment, access to affordable healthy food and safe green spaces, and downstream interventions focused on individuals. Screening and health checks sit much closer to the downstream end of that spectrum.

Dr Mary Gibbs says there are a number of problems with AI, particularly its tendency to misunderstand, as Debbie Cameron can attest

I am an out-of-hours GP, and I am glad to see a news report on this issue, which has been causing me increasing concern at work (Doctors’ AI scribes get names of drugs and diagnoses wrong, NHS watchdog warns, 31 August). There are a number of problems with AI, particularly its tendency to misunderstand and contradict itself, which can lead to dangers for the patient, but I will concentrate on the supposed “time-saving” aspect.

Many of the patients I see will have been assessed by someone else first on the phone, and I am used to reading through a triage assessment before I call in the patient. My heart sinks when I see that AI has been used – the consultation is invariably long, with duplications, and sometimes contradictions. Often, any history I take turns out to be significantly different from what is listed. So I can never trust that it is correct – I can state with certainty that I find meaningful errors far more often in AI consultations than in those typed out by colleagues.

James Frith says patients may be less willing to share data as new figures show a rise in opt-outs

Concern is being raised about Palantir’s work with the NHS as new figures showed tens of thousands of patients have withdrawn their data from use in research projects.

James Frith, the health innovation minister, said he was worried about “mistrust” of the US defence and health tech company and “the impact it could have on people’s willingness to share data with the NHS”.

HHS releases report linking ‘gender ideology’ to political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a report linking “gender ideology” to leftwing authoritarianism and political violence – a study scientists say was poorly conducted and “nakedly political”, likely leading to greater politicization of science and health.

It follows attempts by the administration to limit access to gender-affirming care – including, on Friday, an agreement reached between the Department of Justice and a New York hospital to no longer offer pediatric gender-affirming care. Dozens of hospitals stopped offering gender-affirming care after the Trump administration began investigating them for offering the standard of care.

Newscaster says rare but treatable condition polycythaemia vera left her feeling like she ‘had her batteries taken out’

The BBC News presenter Maryam Moshiri has been diagnosed with a rare form of incurable blood cancer, she has revealed.

Doctors told the broadcaster last November she had polycythaemia vera (PV), which cannot be cured but is treatable. The condition, which affects about 8,000 people in the UK, is associated with an increased risk of the blood clots that can cause a stroke, heart attack or deep vein thrombosis.

US-owned dating app allegedly allowed ad firms access to private information in breach of UK law

Grindr will pay £26m to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of users in the UK who allege that the US dating app shared highly sensitive personal information, including in some cases their HIV status, with advertising companies.

The settlement brings to an end a two-year legal battle, after the UK law firm Austen Hays filed a claim at the high court of England and Wales in April 2024 on behalf of Grindr users alleging violations of UK privacy laws during a period up to early 2020.

Elise Burns and Keith Williams appeared in campaign filmed by Rankin this year – both were denied their wishes, but their relatives are picking up the baton

The feeling, said Sarah Burns of her sister’s last days, is one of overwhelming guilt.

“You feel really guilty, and helpless,” she says. “Because we knew what she wanted. We really did know. But we couldn’t do anything.”

Review led by Donna Ockenden launches after campaign by families and media investigation into deaths at NHS trust

Susan Cacciacarro was almost 37 weeks pregnant with her daughter Chiara when she woke up one morning in 2021, unable to feel her baby kicking.

“My belly just didn’t feel right,” she said. “I didn’t feel any movements.”

Survey finds long waiting times and overcrowding have made abuse ‘routine’ part of working on hospital frontline

Nearly three-quarters of A&E staff experience violence or aggression daily or weekly, according to a survey highlighting the “appalling” abuse of NHS workers.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said understaffed and overcrowded emergency departments were contributing to increased targeting of medics.

With thousands dead across Europe this summer, it’s time to recognise heatwaves as the major natural disasters they are

The numbers are now trickling in: nearly 2,900 dead in the UK, at least 35,000 dead across Europe. That’s how many people are believed to have lost their lives in this year’s early-summer heatwaves – the death tolls for the August heatwaves have yet to be counted. In a sense, these people died in a series of natural disasters, similar to the hundreds who died last month after flooding in Nepal, or during the 2024 floods in Valencia, Spain. And yet we do not process these events the same way. Increasingly deadly heatwaves are the most direct and damaging effect of the climate crisis felt in Europe, but they are rarely framed as such.

There are some obvious reasons for this. Heatwaves by definition unfold over longer periods than other disasters, they are less dramatic, the majority of those who die are elderly or otherwise vulnerable, and their deaths often take weeks or months to be catalogued and reported, all of which make heatwaves seem less immediate and visible. But while heatwaves will probably never provoke the same visceral shock as earthquakes or tornadoes, it should still be possible to shift the way the public thinks about them, which could save lives and lessen their damage.

We can’t control what happens to us – only how we react to it. And when we help others we are reminded that we are more than our suffering

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

My dad, Max, is in his early 60s. More than 15 years ago he was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s disease. Since then his illness has progressed, affecting his mobility and making ordinary tasks, like walking, increasingly difficult.

My dad is softly spoken and endlessly kind but beneath his gentle exterior is a steely determination. Perhaps this comes from being the son of a sole survivor of the Holocaust. Growing up he was taught that people don’t get to choose the hardships life places before us but we can choose how we react to these challenges.

Nomi Kaltmann is an Australian lawyer and journalist. She is a proud member of Melbourne’s Jewish community

In his new book The Brain Cliff, Dr Norman Swan outlines the science of brain ageing and strategies for staving off cognitive decline

You write that instead of fearing cognitive decline, “changing the way you think about the brain cliff can literally change the way you think and remember”. How?

Dr Norman Swan: There are three things you need to know which are not widely known.

Our US friends may pity Europeans for our low salaries, high taxes and dependence on public transport – but they’re forgetting the really important stuff …

I’m sorry to break this to you, but you may be “Europoor”. This is, apparently, what proud American patriots (the kind who describe themselves in those terms on their flag-forward X profiles anyway) are calling us Europeans, mocking us for our low salaries, high taxes and dependence on public transport.

GB news presenter Tom Harwood declared this dig “entirely accurate”, but is it? Well, sort of. US post-pandemic GDP growth is more than double that of the eurozone (15.6% compared with 7.2%; the UK is even worse on 6.3%). As for wages, once you adjust for national differences in the cost of essentials such as housing, food and services, the US average is $86,977 compared with the UK’s $66,299, Germany’s $76,286 and France’s $60,483, according to the OECD. A Sunday Telegraph investigation of the “Europoor” question highlighted astronomically powerful growth of the US tech sector supercharged by AI, making it easy to raise and make big money unencumbered by “old world” regulation and taxation. “We don’t want to be like what Europe has become,” said the Republican pollster Brent Buchanan.

Sector has avoided issue because of stigma fears, expert warns ahead of closure of Nottingham attacks inquiry

Mental health organisations have “failed to acknowledge” the risk of violence from a minority of people with severe mental illnesses, the chief executive of Mind has said ahead of the closure of the inquiry into the Nottingham attacks.

Dr Sarah Hughes, who has led mental health charity Mind for four years and has worked in the sector for almost four decades, said charities had shied away from addressing the risk of violence due to the fact it had increased the stigma and harassment around people with mental health conditions.

Healthy middle-aged people deemed to be at higher risk of developing condition among those eligible to participate

People without memory loss will be offered an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that could stop the development of the condition before dementia symptoms emerge.

Healthy middle-aged people deemed to have a higher risk of developing the condition will be eligible to participate in the trial, which is being run by an NHS trust as part of an international clinical trial aiming to prevent dementia.

Activists are calling on the state attorney general to take action against hospitals that have ended gender-affirming care programs after Trump retook office

A group of trans activists from across Massachusetts brought their needles, hormone gels, pills and sharps containers to Boston on Wednesday to send a message to state attorney general Andrea Campbell.

Organizers with the youth-led group Protect Trans Futures (PTF) took their hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the lobby of her office building, then occupied the space, refusing to leave without a commitment to protect civil rights for trans kids.

Social media, mental health problems, the pandemic and financial instability all contribute to the phenomenon

On Tess Lavanda’s YouTube channel there is one video with substantially more views than the rest: it is titled “I don’t have any friends” and has been watched more than half a million times since she posted it a month ago.

Over on Instagram she has posted dozens of reels with titles like “I turned 22 alone”, “Living alone in London” and “Feeling alone this summer is OK”, each garnering thousands of views and hundreds of comments, many from people feeling the same way.