Rights group challenges trans-inclusive swimming policy at Hampstead Heath

Rules permitting trans women to share female changing facilities and swim in a women-only pond are discriminatory and unlawful, the high court has heard.The City of London Corporation is breaching equality legislation by allowing trans people to use the single-sex ponds on Hampstead Heath, according to a claim brought by the rights group Sex Matters. It is seeking permission to challenge the admission regulations.Daniel Stilitz KC, for the City of London, said Sex Matters had “steamed in”, bringing a premature legal action at a time when its officials were actively consulting pond users on its entry rules.Public bodies are redrafting their policies on single-sex spaces in response to the supreme court’s ruling in April that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex

Will resident doctors lose support over latest strike? | Letters

“Striking resident doctors are digging in. History suggests this will go on and on” says the headline on Denis Campbell’s analysis piece (16 December). As a retired public health research and policy adviser and the parent of a doctor currently in core training, I agree that it is likely to go on and on – but not because doctors are stubborn. It will persist because the numbers do not add up and too much of the response has been political posturing rather than workforce planning.This year, around 30,000 doctors competed for just 10,000 specialty training posts, leaving thousands unable to progress

When ‘How are you?’ becomes a painful question to answer | Letter

It’s not just Germans like Carolin Würfel (16 December) who face a challenge with the question “How are you?” When I was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, that question went from being a routine conversation-opener to something much trickier.The convention, in Britain at least, is to answer something like “Oh, not bad…” Frankly, things are very bad, so I’m stuck between the dishonesty of the ritual reply and the full truth, which is a lot to fling back at someone offering an innocent greeting. I’ve developed the more nuanced response “All right today”, which I use if I really am doing all right in the general context of things.Some days are genuinely rotten, in which case it remains a struggle to work out what to say, but the rest of the time I try to respond relative to my “new normal”. Some days I still have joyous events and upbeat feelings, in which case I’d stretch to a buoyant “Pretty good today”, but always I feel compelled to append the word “today” as a matter of honesty about the future

Study finds 10% of over-70s in UK could have Alzheimer’s-like changes in brain

One in 10 people in the UK aged 70 and older could have Alzheimer’s-like changes in their brain, according to the clearest, real-world picture of how common the disease’s brain changes are in ordinary, older people.The detection of the proteins linked with the disease is not a diagnosis. But the findings indicate that more than 1 million over-70s would meet Nice’s clinical criteria for anti-amyloid therapy – a stark contrast to the 70,000 people the NHS has estimated could be eligible if funding were available.Experts, including those from Alzheimer’s Research UK, have said the findings from the first-ever population-based research into the disease have huge potential for early and accurate diagnosis.“High-quality studies like this are crucial to enhancing our understanding of how blood tests for Alzheimer’s could be used in clinical practice,” said David Thomas, the head of policy and public affairs at Alzheimer’s Research UK

Soaring demand causing shortage of flu jab appointments across England

Soaring demand has caused a major shortage of flu jab appointments across England, the Guardian can reveal.NHS leaders have issued urgent pleas to the public to get their flu jabs and help the health service cope with a crippling “flu-nami”, which last week led to hospitals in England treating record numbers of seriously ill patients with flu.But the biggest pharmacy chains have no bookable appointments available in many of their city centre branches amid dwindling stocks of the flu vaccine.The shortages were revealed as resident doctors in England began five days of strike action after rejecting the government’s latest offer to resolve the long-running dispute over pay and jobs.Older people; those with long-term health conditions; pregnant women; and children are eligible for the flu jab on the NHS

New flu strain putting severe pressure on healthcare across Europe, says WHO

An intense surge in flu cases driven by a newly dominant virus strain is sweeping across Europe, placing healthcare systems in several countries under severe pressure, the World Health Organization has said.The WHO said on Wednesday that at least 27 of the 38 countries in its European region were reporting “high or very high influenza activity”, with more than half of patients with flu-like symptoms testing positive in six countries including Ireland, Serbia, Slovenia and the UK.It said the flu season had begun roughly four weeks earlier than in previous years and urged populations to curb transmission by getting vaccinated, staying home if unwell, and wearing a mask in public if they had respiratory symptoms.The WHO said the new seasonal flu variant – A(H3N2) sub-clade K – was driving the infections, accounting for up to 90% of all confirmed flu cases in the European region, but added that there was no evidence it was causing more severe disease.Hans Henri Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said: “Flu comes around every winter, but this year is a little different