Wes Streeting: ‘half my colleagues’ in Commons using weight loss drugs

Weight loss injections are the “talk of the House of Commons tea rooms” and widely used by MPs, the health secretary has said as he pledged to widen public access to them.Speaking as the government launches a 10-year-plan for the NHS, Wes Streeting said access to weight loss injections should be “based on need and not the ability to pay”.Currently people with a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or more, or 30 or more with a linked health condition, can be prescribed jabs on the NHS through specialist weight-management services.It is estimated that about 1.5 million people in the UK are already taking weight loss drugs, which may have been prescribed through specialist weight loss services or obtained via private prescription costing hundreds of pounds a month

Starmer outlines plan to shift NHS care from hospitals to new health centres

The NHS will shift a huge amount of care from hospitals into new community health centres to bring treatment closer to people’s homes and cut waiting times, Keir Starmer will pledge on Thursday.The prime minister will outline radical plans to give patients in England much easier access to GPs, scans and mental health support in facilities that are open 12 hours a day, six days a week.The health service must “reform or die”, he will say, when he unveils his 10-year health plan.Experts, however, said the planned revolution in the way the NHS operates risked being undermined by staff shortages, tight public finances, a lack of premises in which to host one-stop shop-style “neighbourhood health services” and a public backlash at hospitals being downgraded.“Our 10-year health plan will fundamentally rewire and future-proof our NHS so that it puts care on people’s doorsteps, harnesses game-changing tech and prevents illness in the first place,” Starmer is expected to say at a launch event in London with the health secretary, Wes Streeting

Council failings a factor in death of foster carer run over by child, inquest finds

Failings by a local council contributed to the death of a woman who was killed when a 12-year-old boy she was fostering ran her over with her own car, an inquest has found.Marcia Grant, 60, suffered catastrophic injuries as she tried to stop the boy taking her car outside her home in the Greenhill area of Sheffield in April 2023.The boy, referred to as Child X, was jailed for two years in November 2023. He pleaded guilty to causing her death by dangerous driving, after a murder charge was dropped.On Tuesday, the South Yorkshire coroner Marilyn Whittle recorded a narrative conclusion after an inquest into Grant’s death

Where does the welfare bill climbdown leave UK public finances?

Keir Starmer managed to avert a parliamentary defeat over his main welfare bill on Tuesday, but only by removing a central element. So where does the government’s latest climbdown leave the public finances?Cuts to the personal independence payment (Pip) announced at Rachel Reeves’s spring statement in March were meant to save the Treasury £5bn a year.Ministers’ changes to the bill last week to try to avoid a Commons defeat – reversing some cuts to universal credit and applying the stricter Pip eligibility rules only to new claimants – had already reduced that saving to about £2bn.After stripping the Pip changes out of the bill completely on Tuesday, the Resolution Foundation estimates there will be no savings in five years’ time – leaving a £5bn hole in the chancellor’s plans.Reeves also faces a £1

Chris Whitty says culture-war coverage of cycling could harm nation’s health

Culture war-based coverage of cycling based on stereotypes of middle-aged men in Lycra could harm the nation’s health because it shifts focus away from the people and communities who benefit from physical activity, Chris Whitty has said.Speaking a day before the launch of the NHS’s 10-year-health plan, which is expected to focus heavily on prevention, the chief medical officer for England called on people to set aside media cliches and instead focus on “data which nobody can dispute”.If active travel “is seen as something which is simply the reserve of middle-aged, Lycra-clad people cycling possibly too fast around the park, that completely misses the point of actually where the huge health gains are”, Whitty told a conference in York.He said: “There are some areas where you can send a debate from a cultural war into a much more day-to-day one by actually saying, ‘OK guys, but this is the maths,’ and ensuring that you do so with facts which people find surprising.“So for example, the culture wars will always try and paint the person who’s in favour of active transport, and let’s say cycling, as middle-class, entitled, speeding like a bad person

‘I was constantly scared of what she was going to do’: the troubled life and shocking death of Immy Nunn

Two years after Immy killed herself, her mother Louise is still trying to understand how she found her way to a pro-suicide forum – and a man accused of supplying more than 1,000 packages of poisonJust a few hours before she ended her life, Immy Nunn seemed happy. She and her mother, Louise, had been shopping and had lunch. It was the final day of 2022 and Immy, who was 25, appeared positive about the new year. She talked about taking her driving test and looking for a new flat. She was excited about the opportunities her profile on TikTok was bringing her; known as Deaf Immy, she had nearly 800,000 followers, attracted by her honest and often funny videos about her deafness and her mental health