Palliative care and choice must be at the heart of the assisted dying debate | Letters

Rachel Clarke is right to highlight the pressures on palliative care, but wrong to suggest that assisted dying debates have sidelined these concerns (As a palliative care specialist, I’ve witnessed the human tragedy of our end-of-life care crisis, 10 November). In fact, the opposite is true. The CEO of Hospice UK, Toby Porter, has stated that the government’s £100m investment in hospices, announced last December, would probably not have materialised without the terminally ill adults bill. He recently told a special Lords select committee that the bill has sparked more conversation about end-of-life care than at any point in his long career.The health minister, Stephen Kinnock, similarly acknowledged that the bill has been a catalyst for long-overdue improvements in palliative care, rolling the pitch for another announcement in the coming weeks

Sectioned children face more trauma in the institutions supposed to protect them | Letter

I read with deep sadness the article by Kate Szymankiewicz about the death of her 14-year-old daughter Ruth (‘The ward felt like a prison. What had I let them do?’: how my daughter was crushed by a health service meant to help her, 8 November).As a parent of a child who has also suffered with an eating disorder, I recall the same feelings of horror at the loss of control while we saw our daughter sectioned three times under the Mental Health Act.Our daughter ended up in locked institutions for 15 months, where self-harm, suicide attempts and attempts at absconding were the norm.She was the same age as Ruth when sectioned, far away from home, and without access to therapeutic support because she was deemed too ill

Ultra-processed foods may help explain rising bowel cancer in under-50s, study suggests

Women under 50 who have a diet high in ultra-processed foods (UPFs) stand a greater risk of having abnormal growths in their bowel that can lead to cancer, research suggests.Ultra-processed foods are typically defined as industrially produced products that are often ready-to-eat, contain little in the way of whole foods, fibre and vitamins, and are typically high in saturated fat, sugar, salt and food additives.While the concept is not without controversy, not least around whether all UPFs are unhealthy, studies have suggested such foods are associated with a host of health problems, from higher risk of heart disease to early death.Now researchers say women who have a greater intake of UPFs have a greater risk of the early onset of a common type of bowel polyp known as conventional adenomas.Dr Andrew Chan, the lead author of the study based at Massachusetts General hospital in the US, said the study was prompted by an effort to understand what was driving rising rates of bowel cancer in younger people

Shelter should follow Crisis and directly house homeless people | Letters

I was most interested to read your report about the decision made by Crisis to start directly providing accommodation for homeless people (Crisis charity to become a landlord in attempt to rectify ‘catastrophic’ housing in UK, 10 November). Faced with the growing impossibility of securing accommodation via housing associations or local authorities, Crisis sees this as the most direct way of helping. Isn’t it time that Shelter, with its history of supporting other homelessness organisations, arrived at a similar conclusion?Many people are under the impression that Shelter houses homeless people. Despite having financially supported many frontline housing organisations and related projects during the 1960s and 70s, it pulled back from this role in the 80s. It now works with its 900-plus staff and its £80m income to provide housing advice and to undertake research and campaigning

Call for inquiry after families stripped of child benefit due to flawed travel data

Calls are being made for an urgent independent inquiry after thousands of families were stripped of child benefit due to flawed Home Office travel data that claimed to show parents going on holidays and not returning.Andrew Snowden, the Conservative MP for Fylde and the party’s assistant whip, said the government “must take immediate and transparent action” to address the failures of the anti-fraud benefits crackdown.“Thousands of families have had essential child benefit payments wrongly suspended because of unreliable or incomplete data,” he said.Snowden called for “a full, independent review of how this system was authorised, including how such unreliable travel data was used to make decisions on family benefits”. He said the findings must be published in full

English councils plan to sell off social clubs and sports centres to balance books

English councils are planning to sell social clubs, sports centres and shopping arcades as they bet on a fire sale of assets to balance the books, according to a survey of local authorities.The key cities group of councils, which represents second-tier cities in England, said 60% of councils were planning to sell assets to meet the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.Councils have in the past come under fire for selling playing fields and land to shore up their finances, but argue they must continue to raise vital cash from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.The group said a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets marked “a distinct shift from 2024, when the majority (60%) of local leaders said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to weather increasing financial challenges”.Medway council in Kent said its property management strategy included the sale of a shopping centre in Rainham and a social club in Rochester to raise £20m over five years