One in three across UK are overdue for cervical cancer screening

A third of people across the UK are overdue their cervical cancer screening, while in parts of England some are at greater risk of the disease than others due to a low uptake for the preventive vaccine, experts have warned.Since the coronavirus pandemic, cervical screening attendance rates for women and other people with cervixes have been steadily declining, from 72.2% in 2020 to 68.4% in 2024, NHS England data shows.A YouGov survey of 3,000 people across the UK eligible for cervical cancer screening, commissioned by Cancer Research UK, is in line with these findings, with 30% of respondents being overdue their screening

Jean Robinson obituary

Described as “a troublemaker of the very best kind”, the health activist Jean Robinson, who has died aged 95, championed the rights of patients, pregnant women and disadvantaged people for more than 50 years. She was chair of the Patients’ Association, president of Aims (the Association for Improvements in Maternity Services) and a lay member and outspoken critic of the doctors’ regulatory body the General Medical Council. In 1988 she wrote the explosive booklet A Patient Voice at the GMC, laying bare its inadequacies and contributing to its reform.Robinson’s activist career took off in 1966, when, living in Oxford and looking after her young son, she was invited to become a lay member of the regional health board. She was not prepared to be a rubber stamp appointment and said the board statistician nearly fell off his chair when “the token housewife” came to his office with detailed questions about perinatal mortality rates

Overseas-trained doctors ‘put off UK due to cost of living and low salaries’

Doctors are choosing not to come and work in the UK because they are put off by low salaries, the high cost of living and poor quality of life.Research by the General Medical Council (GMC) shows that doctors who shun the UK are opting to move instead to the United States, Australia and Canada to earn more and have a better life.Overall, 84% of doctors trained abroad surveyed by the GMC said that other countries were better than Britain at paying good salaries and only 5% felt the opposite was true.The UK was also seen as being very poor for the cost of living and quality of life, attracting scores of minus 44 and minus 43.Among doctors considering where to further their careers, the UK scored worse than competitor countries on 14 of the 15 issues the GMC asked them about

Two Leeds hospitals’ maternity services rated inadequate over safety risks

The care of women and babies at two Leeds hospitals presents a significant risk to their safety, the NHS regulator has said, after the preventable deaths of dozens of newborns.The Care Quality Commission (CQC) demanded urgent improvements to maternity services at Leeds general infirmary and St James’s hospital as it downgraded them to “inadequate”.A BBC investigation this year found that the deaths of at least 56 babies and two mothers may have been preventable at the two hospitals between January 2019 and July 2024.The hospitals, run by Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust, are the latest to be engulfed by a maternity scandal that has revealed catastrophic failings in Nottingham, Shrewsbury and Telford, Morecambe Bay, east Kent and others.The downgrading of maternity and neonatal services in Leeds follows unannounced inspections by the CQC in December and January

UK ‘behind curve’ on assisted dying among progressive nations, says Kim Leadbeater

The UK is “behind the curve” among progressive nations, the assisted dying bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, has said on the eve of one of the most consequential votes for social change in England and Wales.The Labour MP said the circumstances may never be right again to pass such a bill, which would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales for terminally ill people with less than six months to live, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel of experts.Her intervention came amid more warnings about the safeguards in the bill, including from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and disability activists, who will protest outside parliament on Friday at the final vote in the Commons.Opponents believe the bill will not offer sufficient protection to those with mental illness or disability or those who might be coerced by abusers. On Thursday, another leading Labour MP, Dan Carden, said he would vote against the bill and the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, urged her MPs to oppose it

Assisted dying: supporters and opponents of bill on hopes and fears ahead of crucial vote

Two cancer patients want choice to decide when to die but man re-diagnosed with non-terminal condition urges cautionEver since Pamela Fisher was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, the fear of dying in pain and discomfort has been keeping her awake at night. “I don’t want to die, not now. I love life and I want to live. But that said, I live in terror at the prospect of how my final weeks of life could turn out,” the 64-year-old said.“I know that even with the best palliative care available, there are limits to what can be done