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

Maureen McGinley obituary

My sister Maureen McGinley, who has died aged 77, was a member of the Order of Columban Sisters, a progressive Irish Catholic order whose nuns train as doctors, nurses and teachers before going abroad.While serving in Hong Kong, Maureen made a significant and pioneering contribution to the care of people who are HIV positive. In 1994 she founded the Society for Aids Care (SAC), the first non-governmental organisation of its kind in Asia. It continues its charitable work to this day. Maureen devoted her life to the welfare of the people of Hong Kong from 1976 until 1999

UK hospitals bracing for once-in-a-decade flu surge this winter

Hospitals are bracing for a once-in-a-decade flu season, with a mutated version of the virus that is spreading widely in younger people expected to drive a wave of admissions when it reaches the elderly.The threat has prompted NHS managers to redouble efforts to vaccinate staff and communities, expand same-day emergency care and treat more patients in the community to reduce the need for hospital stays.As resident doctors in England continue a five-day strike over pay, hospitals are turning to contingency plans to bring in consultants and other staff for extra shifts and reschedule appointments where necessary.“Last flu season was particularly nasty and we’re very concerned that this year could be even worse,” said Elaine Clancy, the group chief nursing officer for St George’s, Epsom and St Helier university hospitals. “We’re preparing for a spike of flu on to our wards

Resident doctors begin five-day strike in latest walkout over pay

Thousands of resident doctors have begun strike action across England in a dispute over pay.The five-day action, which began at 7am on Friday, is the 13th walkout by doctors since March 2023 and health leaders have warned that the NHS may have to cut frontline staff and offer fewer appointments and operations if the strikes continue.The NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, which represent health trusts, said continued action was piling pressure on already-stretched budgets. The last industrial action in July was estimated to have cost the health service £300m.Patients would be forced to wait longer for care, and many may no longer be able to work without the treatment they needed, they said

New AI tool could cut wasted efforts to transplant organs by 60%

Doctors have developed an AI tool that could reduce wasted efforts to transplant organs by 60%.Thousands of patients worldwide are waiting for a potentially life-saving donor, and more candidates are stuck on waiting lists than there are available organs.Recently, in cases where people need a liver transplant, access has been expanded by using donors who die after cardiac arrest. However, in about half of these donations after circulatory death (DCD) cases, the transplant ends up being cancelled.That is because the time between the removal of life support and death must not exceed 45 minutes