Carer’s allowance: woman who won case against DWP calls for end to ‘sickening harassment’

The mother of a teenager with cerebral palsy has demanded an end to the “sickening harassment” of unpaid carers after a significant legal victory against the government.Nicola Green, 42, was pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for more than a year after she was accused of fraudulently claiming nearly £3,000 in carer’s allowance.When Green insisted she was innocent, the DWP wrote to her employer without her knowledge to try to recoup the sum from her pay.The part-time college worker, whose 17-year-old son has a number of health conditions, appealed against the fine before a tribunal judge, who quashed it in barely 30 minutes last month.Speaking after her legal victory, Green said she had been treated “like a criminal” by the DWP over the £2,823

Ministers plan to use NHS app to expand clinical trials as part of UK-wide drive

The government is aiming for a significant expansion of clinical trials in the UK, and plans to use the NHS app to encourage millions of people in England to take part in the search for new treatments.Patients will eventually be automatically matched with studies based on their health data and interests, via the app. The plans envisage alerting them to the trials using smartphone notifications.NHS trusts that fail to meet targets on trials will also be publicly named, and the best performers will be prioritised for funding, as part of improvements designed to restore Britain’s global reputation for medical research.The strategy is one of the first to emerge from the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for England

My father died in a care home and all I got was denials and excuses | Letters

The situation at The Firs care home in Nottinghamshire, which was shut down in April, is dreadful for patients, families and staff (‘How did it get to this?’ What happens when care in a residential home breaks down, 7 June). But the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is not the only body to blame for failings like this.It can’t investigate individual complaints – this is mostly down to the local government and social care ombudsman (LGSCO), but also the parliamentary and health service ombudsman (PHSO). It depends on who funds the care; in theory the same care home could be dealing with two ombudsman staff unaware of each other. Both are equally damned on Trustpilot with overwhelmingly negative reviews

Young carer who unwittingly breached allowance rules forced to repay £2,000

A young carer who had looked after her disabled mother from the age of eight was forced to repay more than £2,000 when she unwittingly breached carer’s allowance benefit earnings rules after joining a government youth employment scheme.Rose Jones, 22, said she was twice wrongly advised by her jobcentre work coach that her wages earned under the Kickstart scheme would not affect her eligibility for carer’s allowance.Less than a year after she completed the six-month scheme, under which the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paid her wages, she received a demand from the DWP demanding she pay back £2,145 of overpaid benefits.“I was shocked when the letter arrived – it came on my 20th birthday – and I really didn’t know what to do. I thought it was a mistake because my work coach had told me it was fine

Senior health figure accuses NHS of racism over care given to dying mother

A senior figure in the health service has criticised it for deep-seated racism after his mother “got a black service, not an NHS service” before she died.Victor Adebowale, the chair of the NHS Confederation, claimed his mother Grace’s lung cancer went undiagnosed because black people get “disproportionately poor” health service care.The NHS’s failure to detect her cancer while she was alive shows that patients experience “two different services”, based on the colour of their skin, Adebowale said.His mother, Grace Amoke Owuren Adebowale, a former NHS nurse, died in January aged 92. He highlighted her care and death during his speech this week at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference as an example of “persistent racial inequalities in NHS services”

People in Australia: tell us your experiences with IVF

After a second embryo implant bungle at Monash IVF, the entire industry is under new scrutiny amid concerns the for-profit model doesn’t always putting families first.Experts worry that clinics might be pushing extra IVF cycles that have little chance of working, and add-on treatments that lack evidence of their efficacy. There are also concerns that people don’t always understand how quickly their chances of a successful pregnancy drop with age.We would like to hear your experiences of IVF. Were you given an accurate idea of your chances of conceiving? Do you feel you were “oversold” extra cycles or non-essential add-ons? How much did you pay and could you afford it? Did Medicare cover part or all of your fee?You can share your experiences with IVF using this form