Health, in sixty words

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has asked NHS England to draw up urgent plans to stop children being treated in hospital corridors. She also wants new standards for how children are cared for in A&E, and says official figures will start counting children separately. More than a dozen health groups had urged action. Cooper said no patient of any age should be treated in a corridor.

The UK government has ordered manufacturers to add folic acid, or vitamin B9, to non-wholemeal wheat flour from December. The measure aims to cut birth defects of the brain and spine, a move Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain objected to on X. Writer Rob Lyons says other countries have done this for years, and wholemeal bread already has enough folate.

Local NHS services are managed by integrated care boards, and minimum waiting times for cataract surgery are being implemented by nearly 50% of these boards. Some of those waits stretch to 16 weeks. A report found the deliberate delays have left one in five patients seeking emergency help.

The UK Health Security Agency, the government's public health body, has reported a big rise in Covid cases this autumn. The cause is a new variant called XFG, also known as American Covid or Stratus Covid. It's believed to bring different symptoms from earlier strains, though the snippet doesn't say what they are.

Resident doctors in Northern Ireland will hold a 24-hour strike on 20 November, with consultants running a reduced service the following Monday, because Stormont still has no budget seven months into the financial year. Without one, doctors cannot receive the 3.5% pay rise colleagues elsewhere in the UK have had since April. The Royal College of Nursing has also opened a ballot for industrial action.

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced an extra £140m for urgent care in England, warning the NHS faces a harder winter than usual after a record summer of heat. The money will fund 14 schemes, including new urgent care centres, ambulances and A&E upgrades. Hospitals are already seeing early flu pressures. The Royal College of Nursing welcomed the cash but called it a short-term fix.

Health bodies across England are declining to use Palantir's £330m federated data platform, freedom of information responses show. Sixteen trusts and health boards said they do not use it, and several said their existing systems work as well or better. Others said it helped with waiting lists and surgery scheduling. The government must soon decide whether to use a break clause in the seven-year contract.

German police have detained a 28-year-old Russian man accused of belonging to the Qilin cyber gang, which attacked blood testing firm Synnovis in 2024. The hack disrupted pathology services at several London hospitals and was later linked to a patient's death. The suspect, named in German media as Vladimir K, was arrested in Japan in May. British police are considering a possible unlawful killing case.

A same-day genetic test used at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital has found hidden and drug-resistant infections in critically ill children that standard tests missed. In a study of 122 children in intensive care, the results changed antibiotic decisions in about a quarter of cases. The test is now being gradually rolled out to around 30 adult and child intensive care units across the UK.

Small cell lung cancer ranks as one of the most fatal illnesses globally, with a five-year survival rate of less than 7%. Researchers at WEHI, an Australian medical research institute, grew mini tumours from patient samples and found gamma delta T cells killed the cancer cells. Patients with more of these cells lived longer, and two existing drugs made the attack stronger.

In a Japanese study of 678 outpatients with type 2 diabetes, 215 developed or worsened kidney disease over about six years. Those sleeping eight hours or more had the highest risk, with a hazard ratio of 1.92 against people sleeping under six hours. The authors stress it was an observational study, so it can't show that sleep causes kidney problems.

Menopause specialists say HRT's heart and bone benefits are strongest when started around menopause, or within 10 years of it. Prof Nick Panay of Imperial College London says this usually means before 60, though the cut-off isn't hard. Dr Naomi Potter, a menopause specialist, says women starting later can still benefit, so care should suit each person.

The pens held fake versions of retatrutide and tirzepatide, and the MHRA, the UK medicines regulator, says nobody can tell what's really inside them. Officers raided the unit on Wednesday with West Midlands Police, and also found packaging for about 30,000 more products. Retatrutide isn't authorised in the UK, so selling it outside clinical trials is illegal.

The rules, published by NHS England on Thursday, replace older guidance that let trans patients be placed by the gender they identify with. Clinical need still comes first, so hospitals must find other arrangements where a ward matching birth sex wouldn't be suitable. TransActual and Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, two trans campaign groups, say it won't work in stretched hospitals.

A US lab found 14 cases in 2025, a significant rise from one to five annually for most of the period since 2009. The study, by the University of Washington and the CDC, covers 48 confirmed cases across 21 states and Washington DC. Up to 70% of infected individuals die, with about half having healthy immune systems.

Among 108 professionals in psychiatry, therapy, and other mental health fields, 74% believed ADHD was overdiagnosed, compared with 39% of 1,521 UK adults. The survey's commissioner, experimental psychologist Dr Sam Day, cautioned against mistaking sadness or worry for illness. Prof Peter Fonagy's government-commissioned review similarly highlighted a significant danger of excessive diagnoses for ADHD and autism.

Science Corporation, led by Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak, has implanted its PRIMA vision-restoring chip in its first Stargardt disease patient. The implant was placed in May in an ongoing trial at Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia. In the first session the patient saw a letter, and in the second he read a word. The hourlong procedure places a chip at the back of the eye.

Pharmacists are telling women not to treat themselves, and never to share HRT with others, because what suits one person may not suit another. The Department of Health confirmed supply problems with Estradot transdermal and FemSeven Conti patches across the UK. For Estradot, pharmacists can swap in alternatives without a new prescription until 8 January 2027, if the patient agrees.

Indonesia is trialling an experimental way to clear toxic wildfire haze by dropping 1.5 tons of dry ice over South Sumatra. Unlike cloud seeding, which triggers rain, the dry ice is meant to break up haze so it can rise upward. The country faces its worst fire season in a decade, with smog drifting into Malaysia and Singapore and over 200 people named as suspects.

More seven-year-olds now receive disability benefits than 50-year-olds, official government figures show. Some 69,799 seven-year-olds get Disability Living Allowance, compared with 66,670 fifty-year-olds on similar support. About one in ten seven-year-olds now claims, up from 37,690 in 2019. Nearly nine in ten under-16 claims are linked to learning difficulties, ADHD or behavioural issues, and spending on it is forecast to pass £8bn within five years.

Stanford University's Christopher Gardner, a nutrition professor, states that the scientific community largely agrees on dietary recommendations. Christopher Gardner was part of a US government panel whose comprehensive 400-page report was ultimately rejected by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Christopher Gardner's latest book, Food Sense, is scheduled for release in the UK on October 15th.

Dr Lade Smith CBE, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has called on the UK Government to tackle a 'silent mental health pandemic' impacting individuals throughout England. Mental health services in England saw 4.1 million people in 2024/25, a 56% increase from 2.6 million in 2016/17. Among those affected are 1.2 million children and young people, a figure representing a 118% increase.

Unmarked graves across Wirral contain the remains of over 1,000 babies, with an additional 270 interred in a burial ground in Oldham. Health Secretary Yvette Cooper apologised in the Commons on Monday, saying parents were denied any say over their babies' remains. Gina Jacobs only learned 53 years later that her son Robert, stillborn in 1969, lay in a shared grave with over 60 others.

Wales had the UK's highest neonatal death rate in 2023, at 1.79 per 1,000 births, falling to 1.49 in 2024. Sands and Tommy's, two baby loss charities, say reviews lean too heavily on clinical notes and want parents' views treated equally. The Welsh government says it is considering national targets to cut stillbirths and neonatal deaths.

Goodburn has three inoperable brain tumours and wants a national brain cancer lead, plus clinical trials from the US, Australia and China brought to the UK. Burnham got in touch on social media after Goodburn's emotional BBC Breakfast appearance, and the pair meet at Downing Street. Charity Brain Tumour Research says charities fund over 75% of UK brain tumour research, with government at 25%.

New figures show suicide rates among men aged 45 to 64 have reached their highest point since data collection started in 1981. Men in their early 50s are most at risk, with the rate increasing to 28 deaths per 100,000 people. Overall, 6,162 suicide deaths were registered last year in England and Wales.

Thirty-eight leading specialists have written to the Health Secretary, Yvette Cooper, asking her to help get two new Alzheimer's drugs on the NHS. In 2024, lecanemab and donanemab received their licences in Britain following trials that demonstrated a reduction in cognitive decline of approximately one-third. Nevertheless, NICE, the health spending watchdog, declined to approve their standard application, deeming the advantages insufficient to warrant the expenditure.

Google released Gemini 4 Argon, which it calls its most powerful artificial intelligence model, to paying users worldwide on Tuesday. AI Pro and Ultra subscribers can use it in the Gemini app and Search, two weeks after it went first to cybersecurity partners. Reuters says Google wants to win back ground from OpenAI and Anthropic after months of delays and a leadership shake-up at DeepMind.

A chemical from Croda, a British company, can now treat "Ozempic face," the facial changes linked to weight-loss injections. The unexpected discovery has led to a significant increase in sales, with revenue from Volufiline jumping 270% in the first half of the year. Over 150 companies have signed up to use Volufiline in their products, and Estée Lauder is also selling a concentrate version.

Women with autoimmune conditions are far more likely than men to be told their symptoms are psychological, a Cambridge and UEA study of over 6,600 patients suggests. Women were 74% more likely to get a psychosomatic misdiagnosis and 46% more likely to get a psychiatric one. Most men were diagnosed within three months, while women commonly waited one to two years before finally getting answers.

More than 150 doctors and health specialists have urged ministers to cut screen use in England's classrooms, warning it may harm children's eyesight, speech and development. Their open letter to Lucy Powell and Yvette Cooper says nearly a million pupils use devices in almost every lesson. The Department for Education said it is already drafting new screen-time guidance for all children aged five to 18.

Maternity staff at Basildon Hospital in Essex have received payouts totalling £735,000 after being exposed to dangerous levels of nitrous oxide, the pain-relief gas used in labour. The 121 claimants, including 85 midwives, reported headaches, fatigue and brain fog. Some faced levels up to 30 times the legal limit between 2021 and 2023. The trust has apologised and says the maternity unit is now safe.

Kentucky has released an unredacted lawsuit alleging Character.AI chatbots encouraged self-harm among young users. Attorney General Russell Coleman said the January filing, now fully public, describes harmful conversations and weak age safeguards. Character.AI has faced other lawsuits and has tightened teen rules. Coleman said America cannot lead in AI while allowing dangerous chatbots that prey on children, and Kentucky seeks stronger legal protections and damages.

While stress can cause general muscle tightness, there's no evidence the hips are special emotional storage units. Physiotherapists say other body parts like shoulders and jaws show a stronger link to mental strain. Moving more, gentle stretching, and strengthening glutes can help ease hip discomfort.

Health officials in England are cautioning that the country could experience an early start to the flu season, noting that hospital admissions are currently elevated for this period. Professor Frankie Swords, NHS National Medical Director, noted that flu admissions are the highest she can remember for early autumn. As of September, 3.9 million individuals have received their flu vaccination.

NHS England will expand the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine programme this year to include people aged 65 to 74 in specific clinical risk groups. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's advice prompted this change, which is set to commence on 1 September 2026. Those eligible will be contacted by their GP and need only one dose of the Abrysvo® vaccine.

Snacks high in saturated fat and sugar can increase levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, especially for Britons over 45. Dr Thomas Butler, a nutrition expert, states that excessive saturated fat consumption impedes the liver's capacity to process LDL cholesterol. Additionally, excess sugar forces the liver to produce more fat that turns into LDL, while lowering "good" HDL cholesterol.

A new study warns that late-night eating could raise your risk of developing liver disease, including conditions like fatty liver disease or cirrhosis. Researchers looked at data from around 200,000 US residents, examining their eating habits and liver health. Individuals who consumed food following dinner or just before bed experienced a 20 to 30 per cent rise in all categories of liver disease.

Mayo Clinic researchers discovered that gut bacteria might offer insights into a patient's prognosis and the adverse reactions to chemotherapy, even before treatment commences. They analysed stool samples from 1,364 cancer patients, linking microbial profiles to clinical outcomes. Specific bacteria were associated with longer or shorter survival in some cancers, and with diarrhea from 5-FU chemotherapy.