Black women with fibroids face delays and poor care in the UK, says report

Black women in the UK who experience symptoms caused by fibroids are facing delays, poor care and dismissal by healthcare professionals according to a parliamentary report.Published by the all-party parliamentary group on black health, the report included a survey of more than 500 women regarding their experience of uterine fibroids, with more than 70% of respondents being Black British.The survey found that more than a quarter (27%) of respondents were not offered any treatment after being diagnosed with fibroids, and more than 50% also had experienced delays to their diagnosis of at least two years, while 26% of respondents had lived with fibroids for more than 10 years.Uterine fibroids are noncancerous growths that develop in or around the womb. Serious cases can be linked to very heavy or long menstrual periods, pain, pelvic pressure and infertility and an increased risk of miscarriage

HMRC cuts child benefit for 23,500 families based on incomplete travel data

Parents who went from Liverpool to Amsterdam with their autistic children are among thousands who have had their child benefit wrongly stopped as part of a crackdown on benefit fraud, it has emerged.The error by HM Revenue and Customs emerged 48 hours after the Guardian and the Detail reported on hundreds of families in Northern Ireland who had child benefit stopped after they returned home from holiday via Dublin airport, leaving HMRC with the impression they had taken a one-way ticket out of the country and were fraudulently collecting child benefit.It has now come to light that HMRC sent out letters questioning the residency of 23,489 of the 6.9m in receipt of child benefit across the UK.Also among those whose benefits were frozen are a woman who went to France for five days after her husband died there; a Lithuanian man, living and paying taxes in England for 24 years, who was “caught” after he went on a five-day holiday with his son to Italy via Stansted airport; a family from Hove who flew in and out of Gatwick on a trip to Australia; and a woman who flew to Bristol from Belfast for her grandmother’s funeral but returned via Dublin airport

Picture of health: going to art galleries can improve wellbeing, study reveals

Enjoying original works of art in a gallery can relieve stress, reduce the risk of heart disease and boost your immune system, according to the first study of its kind.Researchers measured the physiological responses of participants while viewing masterpieces by world-renowned artists including Manet, Van Gogh and Gauguin in a gallery.They found that art positively influences the immune, hormone and nervous systems all at once – something never previously recorded. The findings suggest that seeing original art not only moves people emotionally, but also calms the body and promotes health and wellbeing.The study, led by King’s College London, involved 50 people aged between 18 and 40 in the UK

Cyclist gets 3D-printed face after drunk driver left him with third-degree burns

A cyclist who received severe third-degree burns to his head after being struck by a drunk driver has been fitted with a printed 3D face.Dave Richards, 75, was given a 3D prosthetic by the NHS that fits the space on his face and mimics his hair colour, eye colour and skin. His face received full-thickness burns after a speeding drunk driver hit him while he was out cycling with friends.He said he was “lucky to survive” the crash which also damaged his back and pelvis and caused him to break several ribs on one side of his body.While recovering, he was referred to reconstructive prosthetics, which has opened the Bristol 3D medical centre, the first of its kind in the UK to have 3D scanning, design and printing in a single NHS location

Foster carers across England facing widespread racism, sector leader says

Social workers are experiencing unprecedented levels of racism, while foster carers whose ethnicity differs from the children they care for have been accosted in the street, a fostering leader has said as he called on the government to take action.Harvey Gallagher, the chief executive of the Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers (NAFP), said there was growing concern about the “impact of racism, extremism and far-right sentiment” on foster children, carers and social workers.“In recent months, fostering services have reported increasing challenges, including incidents of racial hate directed towards foster carers from diverse ethnicities and the children in their care,” he said in a public statement sent to the government this week.He said that, after hearing anecdotal reports of young people from BAME backgrounds feeling unsafe and foster carers being accosted in the street, NAFP organised a meeting of 35 fostering agencies across England to discuss the issue.“I was really shocked at what I heard

Ministers warned not to scapegoat prison staff over mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu

Ministers have been warned against scapegoating prison staff as they struggle to contain the political fallout of the mistaken release of an asylum seeker who sexually assaulted a teenage girl.As David Lammy, the justice secretary, announced an inquiry and blamed “human error” for the accidental freeing of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford on Friday, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has questioned why a single member of staff has been “unjustly” suspended.Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, also said that it would be “very easy to throw an individual at Chelmsford under the bus for this” when it was a systemic problem.After Lammy said that a stringent inventory would be introduced to stop further mistakes at release, governors have said that “a checklist won’t cut it”.The former Metropolitan police deputy commissioner Lynne Owens will chair the investigation into why the Ethiopian national was freed on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre