Screen time guidance does not go far enough | Letters

While I fully support the government’s guidance to parents of under-fives to keep screen time to under an hour a day (Keep under-fives’ screen time to no more than an hour a day, UK advice says, 27 March), this does not go far enough. Children do not only experience screens at home; they also encounter them in early childhood settings and schools.Contrary to the advice given in the new guidance for parents, the government requires all children to complete a screen-based test within their first six weeks at primary school. The Reception Baseline Assessment takes up 20 minutes of their daily screen time. Teachers are not able to interact with the child while doing the test as they must follow a script

Starmer’s threat to resident doctors is a grave mistake | Letters

While I totally disapprove, as I did last time, of the doctors’ strike but completely support their demands and grievances, it is the prime minister’s response which has made me write this letter (Keir Starmer gives resident doctors 48 hours to call off strike or lose training offer, 31 March). His threat of not creating extra training posts is shocking, inappropriate and impulsive. Though on the face of it it sounds like an innocuous response showing irritation, it is probably the most convincing evidence so far of his unfitness to govern among the litany of his other missteps.It has laid bare his government’s lack of strategy and lack of sincerity. Does he understand that, by not creating training posts, he is not only going to harm doctors’ careers, spoil thousands of young doctors’ lives and deter others from adopting this noble and vital profession, but also harm the NHS, and thus patient care? The NHS is desperately understaffed

High times or low blows? Experts fail to clear air over German drug legalisation

It was a landmark piece of legislation passed by Germany’s previous, centre-left-led government: a measure that legalised the personal recreational use of cannabis for over-18s despite warnings from critics it would cause a steep rise in the drug’s use, including by teenagers, and boost criminal gangs.Two years on, controversy over the move has still not been stubbed out, with critics and proponents at odds over its impact on consumption, youth welfare and organised crime.Preliminary results from an ongoing study into the policy’s consequences, released on Wednesday, provided a mixed picture, with enough ammunition for each side to claim vindication.The MPs Carmen Wegge and Christos Pantazis of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) said the analysis to date showed that partial legalisation was the right approach.“The dramatic negative effects on consumption patterns or public health feared by critics have not materialised

Three hospital doctors’ groups threaten to coordinate strike action in England

The NHS’s three main groups of hospital doctors in England are threatening to coordinate strike action in a dramatic escalation of their campaign for higher pay.The British Medical Association said on Tuesday it would ballot consultants, and specialist, associate specialist and speciality (SAS) medics about joining resident doctors in taking strike action aimed at improving their earnings.“Should the ballots be successful, the government risks having all doctors working in secondary [hospital] care in England taking industrial action during the same period,” the BMA said.Consultants want better pay and shorter hours, while SAS doctors are seeking increased basic pay, improved overtime rates, more annual leave and better career opportunities.Resident – formerly junior – doctors are due to start a six-day strike next Tuesday, 7 April, just after the Easter weekend

‘Should never have been prescribed’: private UK cannabis clinics face call for tighter regulation

Oliver Robinson felt he had exhausted conventional therapies when he left the Priory, a private mental health facility where he was treated for depression and addiction between 2019 and 2022. Initially he found relief from a new kind of prescription elsewhere. But by the time he took his own life in November 2023, aged 34, his family believe his medicine was making him worse.In January, an inquest concluded that Robinson’s prescription for medicinal cannabis had “probably contributed to his death”. Catherine McKenna, the coroner for Manchester North, also ruled that his continued use of the prescription, first issued to him in May 2022 by Curaleaf Clinic, a private cannabis provider, “acted as an obstacle” to him receiving appropriate psychiatric and addiction care

Vaping likely to cause lung and oral cancer, Australian researchers find in new review of evidence

Vaping is likely to cause lung and oral cancer, researchers have found, as they urged regulators to act now rather than wait decades for a definitive level of risk.Cancer researchers led by the University of New South Wales in Sydney analysed reviews of evidence from animal studies, human case reports and laboratory research published between 2017 and 2025, in one of the most detailed assessments to date of whether nicotine e-cigarettes could cause cancer.There are early warning signs in the body strongly linked to cancer risk, including DNA damage and inflammation, co-author Adjunct Prof Bernard Stewart said. The review, published in the journal Carcinogenesis on Tuesday, found vaping is associated with these pre-carcinogenic changes.“There is no doubt that the cells and tissues of the oral cavity, the mouth and the lungs are altered by inhalation from e-cigarettes,” Stewart said