Australians who don’t pay child support should be chased by tax office, parliamentary committee says

The child support system should be overhauled so that parents who fail to pay can be chased by the Australian Taxation Office for the debt, and insurers and superannuation companies should introduce safeguards to stop perpetrators of domestic violence profiting financially from the deaths of their victims, a parliamentary committee has recommended.The 61 recommendations, tabled by the parliamentary joint standing committee on corporations and financial services, would see sweeping reforms of the banking, superannuation, insurance, taxation, child support and legal systems, in a bid to stamp out financial abuse.Sixteen per cent of women and nearly 8% of men in Australia will suffer from partner economic abuse in their lifetimes, with the financial toll of financial abuse on victims estimated at $5.7bn annually.Senator Deborah O’Neill, the chair of the committee, described financial abuse as “a quiet but raging epidemic that ruins the lives of those it affects” and said she and the committee had been “truly shocked by much of the evidence we received”

Elderly patient left unable to swallow after 52-hour A&E wait

An elderly man was left unable to swallow after waiting over two days in A&E without being given regular medication, and died four weeks later.In a “shocking” case that has raised fresh concerns over the state of urgent NHS care, the 85-year-old was sent to a hospital emergency department after a routine appointment. Amid massive delays, his A&E wait went into a third day, with most of it spent on a bed in the corridor.He had Parkinson’s disease and required medicine at various intervals to control his symptoms. During his time in A&E, the man should have received 18 doses but seven were not given and three were given late, according to a report from the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB)

Tory plan for 20,000 new jail places ‘will be years late and £4bn over budget’ – report

Boris Johnson’s plan to provide 20,000 new prison places by 2026 is due to be completed five years late and billions over budget, a “scathing” assessment by Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.The National Audit Office said current plans for prison capacity were “insufficient to meet future demand” amid a projected shortage of 12,400 places by the end of 2027, with costs expected to be at least £4bn higher than initially estimated.HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has so far created a third – 6,518 – of the places in England and Wales it committed in 2021 to deliver by the mid-2020s.Expansion plans in the prison estate are expected to cost between £9.4bn and £10

Four minutes of daily exertion can halve heart attack risk in women, finds study

Women who add four minutes a day of high-intensity routine activities such as climbing the stairs instead of taking a lift could halve their risk of heart attacks, a study suggests.Less than five minutes of brief bouts of exertion in everyday life could have a significant effect on heart health, reducing the risk of serious cardiovascular events, researchers found. The results were published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.Experts not involved with the study said the findings were clear evidence that getting your body moving and raising your heart rate even just for a few minutes daily can really make a difference to having a healthy heart.Longer bouts of high-intensity physical activity are well-known to be associated with significantly lower risks of cardiovascular disease

How have you been affected by the UK relationship charity Relate going into administration?

The relationship charity Relate has gone into administration with fears that hundreds of clients could have sessions cancelled after 80 staff – a third of the workforce at Relate’s central arm – including 40 counsellors were made redundant with immediate effect.We’d like to hear how you’ve been affected by the charity being on the verge of insolvency. Have your counselling sessions been cancelled? Perhaps you used to work for the charity and have lost your job. We’re also interested in hearing from couples who previously benefitted from the charity’s services.If you have been affected by the charity going into administration, you can fill in the form below

Pioneering drug for rare eye cancer gets go-ahead to be offered on NHS

Hundreds of patients in England with a rare form of eye cancer are to be offered on the NHS a pioneering drug that kills cancer cells and boosts the chances of survival.In guidance published on Tuesday, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) gave the green light to tebentafusp for patients whose uveal melanoma cannot be removed with surgery or has spread to other parts of the body.Tebentafusp, sold under the brand name Kimmtrak, is the first treatment of its kind for uveal melanoma, which develops from cells in the middle layer of the eye, known as the uvea. The disease is thought to affect between 500 and 600 people in the UK each year.Patients will need a blood test to determine if they have the genetic markers that make them suitable for the treatment