Hampstead Heath swimming ponds considering limiting transgender users’ access

A consultation has been launched on transgender swimmers’ access to Hampstead Heath ponds, which could result in them being banned from using the pools for the gender they identify as.The Kenwood Ladies’ and Highgate Men’s ponds are gender-segregated, with trans people currently able to swim in whichever they feel most appropriate, or use the heath’s mixed-gender pond instead.The consultation, by the City of London Corporation (CLC), is now presenting six options for gender inclusivity in the historic institution, one of which would ban trans people from using their preferred ponds.It comes amid a battle between groups who swim in the natural pools, with a protest in 2018 in the men’s pond by women wearing fake moustaches and beards to draw attention to the organisation’s refusal to ban trans women from the ladies’ pond.While this was unsuccessful, the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association (KLPA) rejecting a motion among its 200 members last year that “only those born female in sex can use the pond”, pressure has since mounted after the supreme court ruled earlier this year that trans women were not legally defined as women

Stalin, Putin and an enduring obsession with immortality | Letter

Like Vladimir Putin, Joseph Stalin was interested in immortality (‘To them, ageing is a technical problem that can, and will, be fixed’: how the rich and powerful plan to live for ever, 28 September). In 1939 he read Prolonging Life, a pamphlet promising a lifespan of 150 years, by Aleksandr Bogomolets, a haematologist famous for his rapid-healing serums and blood transfusion methods.Bogomolets promised to prolong life with cytotoxic proteins, herbs and transfusions of young blood. Stalin made him a Hero of Socialist Labour and gave him generous research funding, but was dismayed when he died aged 64 in 1946 (this was hardly Bogomolets’s fault – as a boy in Tsarist times, he visited his mother, a revolutionary serving a sentence of hard labour in a Siberian prison, and caught tuberculosis).Donald RayfieldEmeritus professor, Queen Mary University of London Aleks Krotoski says dictators and US techno-billionaires are striving for immortality

More than 60,000 cancer patients in England ‘not getting necessary radiotherapy’

More than 60,000 cancer patients a year in England are not getting the radiotherapy they need at all, while some face waits of up to six months to begin the treatment, research has found.The situation is so dire that nearly 100 heads of radiotherapy and oncology – three-quarters of England’s radiotherapy leaders – have warned in an open letter that the government is failing patients.International experts agree that more than half (53%) of all cancer patients will typically need radiotherapy, but exclusive analysis of the latest NHS data in England shows only 35% actually receive it. The study by the charity Radiotherapy UK found 181,023 cancer patients should have received radiotherapy but only 120,569 did, leaving 60,455 patients a year without any radiotherapy at all.Regional inequalities are rife

Advantages of online GP booking systems | Letters

GPs in England are missing a trick (GPs in England threaten action over online appointment booking plan, 29 September). The point about non-urgent GP appointments is that they do not need triage – if a patient wants to see a primary care clinician for a routine concern, they can do so, whatever the issue.The number of routine slots available remains the same, and allowing people to book them online will reduce, not increase, workload by freeing up reception staff for other admin tasks, and making it easier to get through on the phone for urgent appointments. It’s urgent requests, not routine ones, that need triage.The big problem in primary care is the mismatch between demand and capacity, not how appointments are booked

Landmark study shows 1.4m Britons have a gambling problem

An estimated 1.4 million adults in Britain have a gambling problem, according to landmark figures released days after the chancellor hinted at plans to increase taxes on the £11.5bn betting and gaming industry.The Gambling Commission’s annual survey found that 2.7% of adults scored 8 or above on the problem gambling severity index, a widely accepted measure analysing negative consequences of betting

UK woman who refused cancer drugs was influenced by mother, inquest finds

A woman who died after refusing chemotherapy doctors believed would have given her a strong chance of recovery was “adversely influenced” by her conspiracy theorist mother, a coroner has said.Paloma Shemirani died aged 23 in July 2024 after refusing conventional treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. On Thursday, the coroner in her inquest said the influence of her parents, Kay and Faramarz Shemirani, “more than minimally” contributed to her death.“It seems that if Paloma had been supported and encouraged to accept her diagnosis and considered chemotherapy with an open mind she probably would have followed that course,” Catherine Wood told a hearing at Kent and Medway coroner’s court in Maidstone.She said Kay Shemirani “took a leading role in advising Paloma in respect of and facilitating access to alternative treatments”