Hospital patients collapsing while out of sight on corridors, NHS watchdog says

Patients are collapsing in hospitals unseen by staff because overcrowding means they are stranded out of sight on corridors, the NHS’s safety watchdog has revealed.Using corridors, storerooms and gyms as extra care areas poses serious risks to patients, including falls, infections and a lack of oxygen, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) said.NHS staff told investigators that some patients who end up on a trolley or bed in overflow areas have not been assessed or started treatment “and so may be at increased risk of deterioration, which may go unnoticed or be detected late in a temporary care environment,” HSSIB’s report said.It highlighted that patients in these areas are at risk of not getting prompt attention if they deteriorate and suffer a medical emergency.“Several nurses shared a patient safety concern around calling for help and responding to a medical emergency in temporary care environments,” the report said

People who stop taking weight-loss jabs regain weight in under two years, study reveals

People who stop taking weight loss jabs regain all the weight originally lost in under two years, significantly faster than those on any other weight loss plan, according to a landmark study.Weight loss medications, known as GLP-1 agonists, were originally developed as treatment for diabetes and work by mimicking the glucagon-like peptide (GLP) 1 hormone which helps people feel full.The study, led by academics at the University of Oxford and published in the BMJ, included a review of 37 existing studies regarding weight loss medication, involving 9,341 participants. The average duration of weight loss treatment being 39 weeks while the average follow up period was 32 weeks.On average, weight was regained at a rate of 0

Our fragile society needs compassion | Letter

Elif Shafak’s image of shattered glass lingers because it names something we often avoid: fragility is not a failure, but a condition that requires care (A polycrisis has shattered our world this year. But with care, we can put it back together, 31 December).The deeper danger she identifies is not crisis itself, but numbness. We have built systems that reward speed, certainty and outrage, and then wonder why compassion struggles to survive inside them. This is evident not only in geopolitics and media, but in our institutions, workplaces and public services

Don’t blame GPs for patients going to A&E with coughs and other minor ailments | Letters

GPs are not to blame for A&E attendances (Huge rise in number of people in England’s A&Es for coughs or hiccups, 31 December).‪England’s general practice meets unsustainable pressures with record productivity: 250,000 additional GP practice appointments are being delivered a day compared with 2019. It is the fall in the number of inpatient beds gumming up the A&E system, not a fall in GPs’ capacity to treat patients.‪With that said, we have thousands of GPs looking for NHS work across England right now. Just 65 more GPs could have delivered the 1

UK LGBTQ+ charities are in ‘hostile environment’ amid falling donations, experts warn

LGBTQ+ charities in the UK are operating in a newly “hostile environment”, experts have warned, as the ripple effect of Donald Trump’s attacks on equalities programmes sharpens financial pressures.The concerns come as yearly accounts submitted by Stonewall, the UK’s biggest LGBTQ+ charity, revealed corporate donations had more than halved in the last financial year, falling from £348,636 in 2024 to £143,149 in 2025.“This is an incredibly tough environment for LGBTQ+ charities,” said Heather Paterson, the head of partnerships and development for LGBT+ Consortium, an umbrella support group.Paterson pointed to research published last March by the consortium that estimated LGBTQ+ organisations receive just 10p in every £100 given to voluntary and community organisations in the UK every year.The US president’s executive orders scrapping DEI at US government level and his freeze on foreign aid for LGBTQ+ programmes have undoubtedly affected fundraising efforts in the UK, said Paterson

Tell us: what questions do you have about fasting for health reasons?

The team from our It’s Complicated Youtube channel are looking at how eating throughout the day has become normal in many Western contexts, what that might be doing to our bodies, and whether this new wave of wellness fasting really does what it claims.We’d like to know what you want explained. If you could sit down with a leading expert on fasting, what would you ask them? Send us your questions, large or small via the form below. Your questions could help shape our reporting and be featured in the show.You can post your question using this form