It’s not enough to legislate for parity of services between mental and physical health. Without a change of mindset and proper funding nothing will change
In the aftermath of last week’s horrific plane crash in the Alps, attitudes to mental health seem to have taken a step backwards after years of progress. We now need a more positive approach to mental illness.
For the past few years, the main political parties have been trying to outdo each other when it comes to talking up what they would do to improve mental health services. They have all shown a firm commitment to NHS England’s manifesto in kind, the Five Year Forward View, which seeks to link up health and social care, shift the focus from secondary to community care, and bridge the divide between mental and physical health.
Family carers are among the most responsible members of society. CarerWatch, along with others, believes suggestions made in recent leaked documents of moving carers to universal credit would result in an unfair system that gives no recognition whatsoever of the contribution carers make to society. CarerWatch believes that governments should accept their responsibility to carers. Carers deserve a livable income, a separate benefit which recognises that they are not unemployed or “passive” recipients of benefit but are making an important contribution to society.
Those in receipt of carer’s allowance cannot be classed as being inactive. Carers are unique within the benefit system in that they have to provide a minimum of 35 hours a week care in order to qualify for carer’s allowance. Over 1.5 million carers provide more than 50 hours’ a week of care, some providing care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Carer’s allowance cannot therefore be considered as being a “passive” benefit. Caring places physical and emotional demands on a carer. Unpaid caring entails carrying out the same tasks and duties considered by society to be work when carried out by paid care workers.
As a obstetrician, one of the most common questions I hear from my patients is: What are some natural ways to deal with an upset stomach, heartburn or acid reflux? And what I always tell them we need to consider is that the physiology of the gastrointestinal tract in a pregnant woman is slightly altered. […]
The United States could have had more than a dozen Ebola cases monthly during the height of the epidemic in West Africa last year, and a half dozen cases in treatment simultaneously, according to a new study
Male fertility in the west is in crisis. But, thanks to a lack of anxiety among men, we haven’t yet taken the problem seriously
Scientists at Harvard have found that men who eat a lot of pesticide-coated fruit and vegetables have fewer and less healthy sperm than those who do not. The authors stress that this should not be a cause for panic measures or a change in dietary habits. The study only researched men attending a fertility clinic, who might not be representative of the general population, and while the differences were measurable and statistically significant, they were not huge.
Nonetheless, if you are a man who is worried about your sperm count and fertility.... Whoa, wait right there, what am I thinking? If you are a man, of course you are not worried about your sperm count and fertility, that is simply not something men do. As young bloods we jokingly wish for infertility, allowing us to sow our wild oats without any inconvenient crops being harvested nine months later. In later life, we might continue to stress about our sexual performance, erectile function, the size of the prize or the middle-age spread, but the health and wealth of the little swimmers rarely warrants a second thought.
A system that records the sounds of every breath and snore you utter while sleeping may offer an alternative to clinical sleep-tracking technology, new research suggests.
Andrew Hutchinson pleads guilty to attacks at Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital and series of other sexual and voyeurism offences
A staff nurse has admitted raping three women, one aged just 18, in a hospital’s emergency department, as well as a series of other sexual and voyeurism offences.
Andrew Hutchinson, of Garford, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, pleaded guilty on Monday at Oxford crown court to the attacks at the John Radcliffe hospital. The other victims were aged 35 and 22.
Scans show that brain regions crucial for the development of language, memory and reasoning skills tend to be smaller in those from poorer backgrounds
Brain scans of children and young adults have revealed that specific brain regions tend to be smaller in those from poorer backgrounds than those born into wealthier families.
The effects were most striking among the poorest families who took part in the study, where even modest changes in wages could have a significant impact on the structure of the children’s brains.
Wheelchair basketball and other adaptive sports could help disabled veterans boost their self-esteem and lead healthier lives, early research suggests.
Americans have always mocked the state of teeth in the UK, but a rise in people having cosmetic dentistry means Brits will no longer have to grin and bear it
Investigators may never know exactly why Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz carried out what is believed to have been a deliberate plane crash in the French Alps on Tuesday, but mental health experts say that any mental illness that Lubitz may have had is just one possible contributor to the tragedy.
Instagram took down a photo by artist Rupi Kaur that showed a small amount of her menstrual blood. When will society accept women’s bodies?
There’s a predictable social media formula for what women’s pictures online should look like. Breasts in barely-there bikinis are good (thumbs-up emoji, even), but breasts with babies attached them are questionable. Women wearing next to nothing is commonplace, but if you’re over a size 10 your account may be banned. Close-up shots of women’s asses and hardly-covered vaginas are fine, so long as said body parts are hairless.
And now, in a controversy that once again brings together technology, art, feminism and sex, Instagram is under fire for removing a self-portrait from artist Rupi Kaur that showed a small amount of her menstrual blood. Apparently having a period violates the site’s Terms of Service.
An employee’s desk is an oasis of calm in the horrendous office environment. No wonder we like to stay put
In the latest “being alive can kill you” news, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) is warning of the risks of diabetes and cardiovascular disease from sitting at your desk for too long. As a new survey shows that most office workers spend only half an hour a day on their feet, the BHF and Get Britain Standing are launching a campaign to get people up and walking around more. That might sound sensible from a physical point of view, but psychologically it is myopic. The worse work gets, the more we want to stay at our desks.
Sitting at a desk, after all, feels safe. The depth of the desk provides a physical barrier to anyone threatening to intrude in front of us. (Ideally, there should be a wall at one’s back. That is one of the many reasons why open-plan offices are so unpleasant: the possibility that anyone could creep up on you from behind is why sitting with your back to a door is bad feng shui.) For as long as we sit there, the desk is entirely our domain. The nesting instinct is awakened, and we create a personalised space with photographs, Keanu Reeves action figures, plants, and arrays of mechanical pencils.
Thinking about the real world is often easier, and more comfortable, if you are sitting at a desk
Political editor, whose cancer news sparked get-well wishes from David Cameron and Ed Miliband, says chemotherapy will follow surgery
The BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, has said an operation to remove a tumour from his lung was a “complete success”.
Robinson, who announced in February that he was undergoing treatment for lung cancer, said an operation to remove it had gone well and “normal service will be resumed as soon as possible”.
With the indiscriminate use of marijuana today and the legalization of the drug in many states for recreational use, marijuana is becoming a problem among women who are pregnant, or who are trying to get pregnant. The question is, is it safe? The short-term answer is no. In its simplest form, marijuana acts as both […]
Starting with Berkeley, California in 1997 cities, regions and whole countries have banned indoor smoking in public places. Ireland introduced the first nationwide ban in 2004 and various types of restrictions are now in place in 92 countries from Albania to Zambia. This year’s planned indoor smoking ban in China will mean a huge increase in the global population covered.
Initially prompted by concerns about second-hand smoke and lung cancer risks these bans have yielded far greater benefits than the first campaigners can have anticipated.
People with autism and learning disabilities can die up to 20 years prematurely. So how can we help carers and health workers diagnose illness in non-verbal patients?
“Oh, he’s been so brave and good. He’s not made a fuss at all.” That’s what the well-meaning care worker said about my autistic older brother after he broke his nose in an epileptic seizure some years ago. Except that Timothy wasn’t being brave or good – he’s just not able to tell us when something is wrong; he doesn’t have the words for it. Like a third of people on the autistic spectrum, my 58-year-old brother has very limited verbal communication. He can speak, but usually only when prompted, and in learned, short phrases or single words. And like the majority of people with autism, he has unusual sensory responses. We suspect that he doesn’t feel pain in quite the same way we do.
There is a saying that when you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism – it is notoriously hard to generalise about a condition that takes in such a wide spectrum, from the highly intelligent but socially awkward adult to the profoundly learning-disabled child who will need lifelong support. But there are certain health issues that crop up so often that all those with autism, their advocates and medical professionals need to be aware of them.
Health secretary promises to fund NHS England boss’s five-year plan, which foresees total funding of £30bn, with £22bn to be found via efficiency savings
The Conservative party will spend an extra £8bn on the NHS if it wins the general election to fund a five-year plan drawn up by its chief executive, Jeremy Hunt has promised.
The health secretary said the government would fully fund the plan drawn up by Simon Stevens, the boss of NHS England, which would see £2 bn pumped into the health service every year until 2019/20.
Government reaches deal with GlaxoSmithKline on price of Bexsero, which was recommended by advisers a year ago
All babies in the UK will soon have a potentially life-saving vaccine against meningitis B under a landmark deal, the health secretary has announced.
Jeremy Hunt said Britain would become the first country in the world with a nationwide meningitis B vaccination programme, after the government reached a deal with the drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.
As Brian Harvey speaks out on mental health, music industry is urged to protect its artists
The former lead singer of the 1990s band East 17, Brian Harvey, considered suicide last month, has been on the verge of being evicted and cannot afford to heat his home, it has emerged in a radio interview that campaigners hope will spur the multi-billion-pound music industry to do more to protect its artists.
Simon Danczuk, the outspoken Labour MP, has condemned record labels for “chewing up and spitting out” musicians ahead of the broadcast of an interview he did with the singer.
I have to sit there every Christmas and listen to myself while I don’t even have the money for a Christmas dinner
What Lubitz did doesn’t belong within a definition of depression
The temptation, when pondering the actions of Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz, is to wonder at how our fellows are “unknowable”. For all the analysis, how close we will ever get to discerning what went on in Lubitz’s mind? Yet perhaps there is a lesson in discriminating between what he did and the general, overwhelming, chatter about the effects of depression.
It will take years for the courts to establish whether Lufthansa was responsible for knowingly employing someone who was unfit for service. But what Lubitz did doesn’t belong within a definition of depression – it was murder. You can’t spend 10 minutes listening to your colleague pleading for his life and the lives of everyone else on the plane while watching the mountains rise up to meet you without belonging to a different order of being, the tiny minority of out-and-out killers.
A beige population with no life experience is also lacking in the insight that the low moments can bring
President of Royal College of Psychiatrists urges caution over calls for people suffering from depression to be prevented from working as pilots
Britain’s most senior psychiatrist has warned airline authorities to avoid a kneejerk reaction to the crash of the Germanwings flight, insisting that depression should not lead to a lifetime ban for commercial airline pilots.
The intervention came as it was reported that Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot believed to have deliberately guided Flight 4U9525 into the Alps, killing all 150 on board including three Britons, had secretly sought treatment for vision problems that may have been linked to his history of mental illness.
H5N2 strain, which has appeared in several states, prompts countries to ban Minnesota poultry imports as disease hits key bird migration route
An outbreak of a bird flu strain that’s deadly to poultry deepened Saturday when state and federal officials confirmed a third Minnesota turkey farm has been infected, this time in one of the state’s top poultry-producing counties.
The federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said a commercial flock of 39,000 turkeys in Stearns County of central Minnesota has been infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 strain of avian influenza, which also killed tens of thousands of turkeys at two other farms in Pope and Lac qui Parle counties of western Minnesota.
Report by Doctors of the World UK says deterrent can lead to complex problems in childbirth which may have been avoided if treatment had been sought earlier
Vulnerable female migrants may be putting their health and that of their unborn children at risk by not seeking maternity care because they are afraid of being billed thousand of pounds, a charity has claimed.
A report published by charity Doctors of the World UK found many migrants and asylum seekers feared high costs, being arrested or thrown out of the UK if they tried to access antenatal care, so would avoid doing so until the later stages of their pregnancy.
Health secretary points to higher mortality rates at weekends and says reforms were necessary to ensure hospitals can always provide consultant-level care
Reforms to the NHS which saw the government break its promises and enforce a top-down reorganisation were necessary to provide the money needed for a seven-day health service in the future that will reduce mortality rates, Jeremy Hunt has said.
The health secretary defended the controversial shakeup of the NHS, which saw vast sections scrapped and new organisations created in the early days of the coalition, saying it had made £1.5bn in savings which will be used to ensure hospitals can open at weekends when, he admitted, people are more likely to die.
You're in the mood and your partner is ready, so you make a beeline to the bed with plans to rock the sheets. But then you feel it—a dull ache, an itchy rash, or a searing out-of-no where jab.
What began as a few glasses has become a bottle a night. I worry that if I don’t find another way to cope with stress, someone might call last orders on my career
I don’t remember when it started, but I think it was around my second year in teaching. At first it was just a couple of glasses after work, and then a couple more. I’m now faced with the thought that my relationship with wine has become dysfunctional. It’s become a little too close for comfort.
I’m not saying I’m an alcoholic, but when you’re getting back from work and the first thing you do is pour yourself a large glass of Pinot Noir, then comfortably polish off the bottle before you’ve finished dinner, you know things have maybe gone too far.
I’ve coped manfully for many years hiding the effects of my drinking from those who should be most concerned.
Since 2008, pregnant women in the United States have been required to undergo screening for HIV as part of their routine prenatal care. The screening, implemented by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), should be done as early in the pregnancy as possible, and again when the patient reaches the third trimester. It […]
Nonprofits are using the state’s new stormwater requirements to sue plastic manufacturers for polluting waterways — and they’re winning
Citizen enforcement has always been an important part of the US Clean Water Act, which aims to prevent dangerous water pollution through regulation. Without the help of watchdog groups looking out for pollution in the country’s rivers and ports, state water boards would struggle to keep tabs on the tens of thousands of industrial manufacturing facilities in the US.
In the last few months, a nonprofit group called the Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) has teamed up with environmental law firm Greenfire to go after some of the 3,000 plastic manufacturers in California that it says are violating stormwater permitting requirements, and therefore the Clean Water Act. A startling number of these facilities have not registered for permits at all - a violation of the law - and others are allowing pre-production microbeads and plastic byproducts to end up in rivers or the ocean, according to the group.
Corporal Anna Cross was first patient in world to be given experimental drug MIL 77
A British military healthcare worker being treated for Ebola at London’s Royal Free hospital has been discharged, after becoming the first Ebola patient in the world to be given the experimental drug MIL 77.
The woman, who was diagnosed with the disease while working in Sierra Leone earlier this month, can now be named as 25-year-old Anna Cross, from Cambridge. Corporal Cross was flown back to the UK on an RAF plane on 12 March.
A 4-year-old Florida boy considered a hero by many met his favorite superheroes Wednesday, when the staff at the hospital where he is being treated for cancer arranged for a surprise visit.
NHS regulator admits to doctors it was wrong to imply a risk to patient safety via the rating of surgeries according to six bands
The NHS regulator has abandoned its system of bandings for GP practices, after criticism from doctors’ representatives.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) last year placed all 7,661 GP surgeries in England in bands from one to six under its “intelligent monitoring” system, with one indicating the greatest risk to patients.
Anomalies in the banding systems resulted in confusing patients and shaking the confidence of hard-working GPs
Labour has confirmed that its proposed profits cap on private NHS providers would only apply to clinical services.
Labour confirms its 5% cap applies only to clinical services: MT @LabourHealth We're talking about contracts for clinical services
Policy Q: does Labour's proposed 5% profit cap on private companies supplying NHS services cover pharmaceutical makers, chemists and GPs?
Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative health secretary, has claimed that Labour’s proposed cap on profits for firms with NHS contracts could lead to “chaos” for the NHS.
If you bankrupt the economy like Labour did last time, then you’ll put our NHS at risk. We can only have a strong NHS if we have a strong economy, but Ed Miliband doesn’t have an economic plan.
We all know Labour want to ‘weaponise’ the NHS but this is another policy from Ed Miliband that looks ill-thought through. It risks higher infection rates, higher waiting times and chaos for our NHS. This incompetence is exactly why Ed Miliband is simply not up to the job.
There were two key policy announcements in Ed Miliband’s speech.
· Doctors have raised concerns over private companies “winning contracts that have multi-million pound profit margins.” (Pulse, May 2014)
· The National Audit Office has called for greater use of profit controls in government contracts, saying “Excessive profits can undermine public confidence and contractors should not be able to make a profit by acting against their customer’s (the government’s) interest” and calling for the use of “gain-share mechanisms, claw-back of excess profits and post-contract reviews.” (National Audit Office, 2014).
Q: You have a poster about the Tories cutting health spending “to the bone”. But it has been protected. You are just scaremongering, aren’t you?
Burnham says the government has slashed spending on care. That is at the root of the NHS problems. Care cuts are effectively NHS cuts, he says.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, is being interviewed by Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics.
Miliband is wrapping up.
Addressing the Labour people in the audience, he says “the fight starts here”.
Q: Aren’t you scaremongering about the NHS? No one is being asked to pay.
Miliband says the Health Act was all about giving more role of the private sector. If the Tories get back in, there will be more of this. This is not the way forward, he says. He says the experts agree.
Q: Are you relaxed about fewer NHS contracts to private firms. Why not cap the involvement of private firms in the NHS?
Miliband says Andy Burnham has led on calling for an integrated service. A fragmented service cannot be an integrated service.
Miliband says he is just taking a couple of questions.
Q: Jim Murphy said today Scotland could pick the winner of the campaign. Are English voters being frozen out?
And, for the first time, we will cap the profits that private health companies can make from our National Health Service.
The standard rule will be a five per cent cap.
Miliband says Labour would stop creeping privatisation within the NHS.
Privatisation of the NHS is no longer simply out of step with our principles, it is out of step with the needs of the time.
If the task of health care in the future is integrating services, bringing them together, the last thing we need is to fragment and privatise.
Miliband turns to the new health proposals unveiled today.
He says they amount to a “double lock” to protect the NHS.
With a Labour government there will be a new double-lock to protect our National Health Service.
Guaranteeing proper funding.
Miliband is now summarising Labour’s election pledges.
Miliband says Labour are the optimists in this campaign. And his opponents are pessimists.
We saw a rattled prime minister, running from his record.
And we heard a prime minister living in a different world.
Ed Miliband is just starting his speech now. He was introduced by Harriet Harman and a nurse called Agnes (I did not catch her surname).
And what was at the heart of those games?
A spirit of optimism.
Labour has sent out a briefing note with details of its policy announcement. The key elements are already in Patrick Wintour’s story. (See 11.16am.)
This is what Labour is claiming about the threat posed to the NHS about privatisation under the Tories.
David Cameron’s Health & Social Care Act imposes a market framework on the NHS, forcing services to be put out to tender even if doctors do not think they should be. As a result, more and more private sector contracts are being awarded:
· Private providers have secured a third of contracts for NHS clinical services since the Health & Social Care Act came into force (BMJ, December 2014)
@AyrGJH@AndrewSparrow not apply to dentists GP practices or pharmacists, according to Labour.
John Plunkett tells me that around 300 people have now complained to Channel 4 about alleged bias in the questioning of David Cameron and Ed Miliband by Jeremy Paxman and Kay Burley last night. That is on top of the 110 complaints to Ofcom (see 10.58am), taking the total number of complaints to more than 400. We are still waiting to hear about complaints to Sky.
A profits cap would be imposed on private health companies by an incoming Labour government, Ed Miliband will say today when he launches the party’s election campaign at the Orbit Tower at the Olympic Park in East London.
developing a more cost reflective tariff system to ensure that the prices paid better reflect patient complexity”.
There is a limited role for independent sector providers in providing services but that must be to support the NHS not to break it up.”
Ed Miliband has been tweeting from the Labour campaign launch, which is at the Olympics site in East London.
I'm in east London for the launch of our campaign this morning - voters have a big choice in this election. https://t.co/IfsNN53lIO
So, here’s a summary.
More from Patrick.
NHS commissioners would have power to lower/raise the 5% cap to take account of circumstance. Excess profits would have to sent back to NHS.
Labour says will introduce a more cost reflective tariff system to ensure that prices better reflect patient complexity. ps Easier said...
My colleague Patrick Wintour has a scoop from Labour’s campaign launch.
Labour to impose a profits cap on all outsourced NHS contracts over a value of £500,000 with default level set at 5 %.
My colleague John Plunkett has sent me more about last night’s Cameron/Miliband TV showdown. He’s got three new lines.
The media regulator Ofcom has received 110 complaints from viewers about “alleged bias” in the treatment of Ed Miliband and David Cameron in last night’s Channel 4/Sky News programme.
Certainly a lot of commentators - and instant Twitter reaction last night - thought Kay Burley was a lot tougher on the Labour leader, interrupted him more and asked more questions in the segment in which questions were put by the studio audience.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We are assessing the complaints before deciding whether or not to investigate.”
There’s no word yet from C4/Sky about complaints they may have received.
Last night’s leader interviews had another 322,000 viewers on Sky News (which simulcast it with Channel 4) giving it a combined audience including C4 of nearly 3m, a big hit for both.
Channel 4 peaked with 3m viewers, Sky with 371,000, way up on the news channel’s average ratings.
More details on the ratings. If Miliband’s decision to go second last night was an attempt to avoid a big TV audience, it failed.
More people were watching at 9.45pm when Miliband started (2.8m) than were watching when Paxo pounced on Cameron (2.5m) at the top of the programme at 9pm.
I posted a summary of Twitter reaction to last night’s Cameron/Miliband showdown here. And Guardian commentators posted their verdicts here.
Here are some of the other comment pieces I’ve seen about the event this morning that I found interesting.
Cameron always seemed reluctant to concede fault and mistakes during his watch. Miliband, in contrast, readily admitted to past failures on immigration and inequality – though not on the level of the fiscal debt in Labour’s later years in office.
But while admitting mistakes may seem more honest, it may not necessarily persuade voters that you have learnt from them.
The central weakness of the Labour party’s campaign — the sense that it cannot be trusted with economic policy — was left intact by this encounter. On the critical question, asked by Mr Paxman, of whether Labour borrowed and spent too much, Mr Miliband stuttered his way to the wrong answer. It is hard to go before the country and seek high office with an answer to vital economic questions that is still so far from credible. He also had a difficult personal moment on his “strained” relations with his brother. On immigration, the mansion tax and relations with the SNP, where Labour policy is again weak, Mr Miliband also struggled.
The instant verdict of an ICM poll was that Mr Cameron had won the debate 54-46. That probably reflects the substance rather than the style of the debate which will probably not settle the election but it did allow the two principals to exhibit their different conceptions of the problems that face Britain. There is a genuine choice on offer in this election and it was on display on prime time television. There was also one obvious winner last night: Jeremy Paxman.
As for David Cameron, he was wrong-footed and looked it. Jeremy Paxman portrayed him as a rich kid who breaks every promise he makes. Mr Cameron has for years avoided long-form TV interviews, not least under the advice of Andy Coulson (not sure he’s still quite as rich as Mr Paxman painted him – certainly he’s not as rich as Mr Paxman). Last night the rustiness that comes with hiding from folk like Jeremy Paxman showed.
Andrew Cooper, David Cameron’s former pollster, said the programme would not shift a single swing vote. He knows a thing or two about the TV habits and profile of swing voters.
Miliband’s response to the “could you stand up to Putin question” was painful: “Hell yes I’m tough enough.” No normal person in Britain talks like that. He also called the audience Q&A a “town hall meeting”. Perhaps his expensive American advisers had too much of an effect on him.
He also came up with some surprisingly crude anti-Americanism, however, claiming that he had stood up to Barack Obama, whom he mystifyingly called “the leader of the free world”, over Syria. This is a travesty of what actually happened, when Miliband was in favour in principle of strikes to punish Assad until he realised how unpopular they were.
Team Cameron was correct: the experience of watching the Labour leader can only beat expectations, which is why they were right to avoid a head-to-head debate. I thought Miliband’s guff about his brother was pitiful shlock, but Paxman’s sneering and drawling had the counter-productive effect of working the live audience round to Miliband’s side.
Of course a “debate” won’t win the election. It may have only the most marginal impact. It may be forgotten come election day, after a few more of these set piece events. But if it has an impact at all, it will be to remind those who have underestimated Miliband, who have traduced him, mocked him and written him off, that he’s a more than capable politician on his day. That’s not to ignore his flaws or excuse the mistakes that he has doubtless made. But a few more days like this in the coming weeks and he may just get to show he’d be a capable Prime Minister too, with a far more energised party behind him.
David Cameron has been doing a Help to Buy visit this morning.
As usual, he’s been in a hard hard and a high-vis jacket.
Grant Shapps, the Conservative chairman, has just tweeted this.
When Obama beat McCain 54-46 in a head-to-head it was called a landslide. But for the BBC that's called "no clear winner". Odd!
We’ve just had the ratings for last night’s Cameron/Miliband TV showdown. My colleague John Plunkett has the details.
Ratings just in - Channel 4 had 2.6m viewers for Paxo’s grilling of Cameron and Miliband.
These are big numbers, beating ITV documentary The Triplets Are Coming! (1.7m) and, with an 11.7% share of the audience, around double what C4 typically gets in primetime. They will be delighted.
Here are today’s YouGov GB polling figures.
Update: Cons lead at 2 - Latest YouGov / The Sun results 26th Mar - Con 36%, Lab 34%, LD 7%, UKIP 13%, GRN 5%; APP-12 http://t.co/uRDMHyWTZE
Illegal immigrants would be put on a plane before they get the chance to appeal under Conservative plans to rip up deportation laws.
Home secretary Theresa May wants to implement a new regime of ‘deport first, appeal later’.
If Theresa May is so worried about this, she’s been the home secretary for five years – I think your viewers will reasonably say: why is she announcing with six weeks to go to the general election a policy she could have implemented many years ago?
UPDATE AT 12.37PM: Earlier I said the incident happened after the TV showdown. I’ve changed that because it reportedly happened at noon, before the TV event.
Good morning. I’m taking over now from Claire.
What you saw last night is for the first time, the public got to see the real Ed Miliband – Ed Miliband unmediated by sections of the press who are out to get him and want to portray him as something that he isn’t. Last night was an opportunity for the public to see the real Ed Miliband and they liked that Ed Miliband and he came across much more strongly than David Cameron and I think he proved a lot of people wrong last night.
She also said that people were tired of questions about Miliband’s decision to stand against his brother in 2010.
I think it [the interview] will have begun a process of reappraisal.
I think that speaks volumes … He’s run a mile from that debate.
Labour election campaign chief Douglas Alexander is on now. He says Miliband had not practised the “hell yes, I’m tough enough” line. He was just answering the question, Alexander says.
Tory party chairman Grant Shapps is on the Today programme now.
He says David Cameron last night sounded like a man with a plan for the country.
If Labour is elected, if Ed Miliband is prime minister, I think it would be pretty chaotic.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and SNP leader, has just been interviewed by John Humphrys on the Today programme.
We would in no circumstances support a Conservative government.
It’s a matter of simple arithmetic: if there are more anti-Tory MPs then we can lock the Tories out of government.
Of course he’s not going to say that [that Labour would work with the SNP] this side of an election.
He’s clinging to pretence he’s got some chance of winning a majority when everyone know that’s not going to happen.
We can beat them issue by issue … We would use our influence to try to pursue an alternative to austerity, the end of Trident … that’s the way minority government works.
If people choose to vote SNP, they’ll make sure Scotland’s voice is heard in Westminster.
SNP will have 'a lot of support from some Labour backbenchers for some things we want to do, like ending austerity', @NicolaSturgeon says
We’re not goiong to get another referendum by voting SNP in the general election …
It will be determined by the people of Scotland in the normal way.
It seems Grant Shapps will be making an appearance on the Today programme at around 8.20am to discuss the fallout from last night’s TV interviews.
Ed Miliband will launch his party’s election campaign this morning at the Olympic Park in East London with a promise he will fight an election campaign suffused with optimism and determined to show that Britain can do better. He will repeatedly claim Labour are the optimists and the Tories the pessimists.
The Labour leader will insist the spirit of optimism will be at the heart of a campaign intended to get the party back into Downing Street after five years in opposition.
Five million people paid less than the living wage. They say: this is as good as it gets. We say: Britain can do better than this.
A quick sweep-up of the day’s other business:
We can be categorical about this. Charles has absolutely no right to do any of this. It is an empty platitude, often heard, that Charles has as much right to his opinion as anyone else. So he does, but not everyone has an open line to ministers and his use of it explodes any notion that these letters are ‘private’ …
If he wants to be a private citizen, with the protection of privacy which is due, he knows what to do. Then, having abdicated, he is free to scribble spiders all day long and we’ll see how many of them get answered.
If it is accepted that the head of state is going to have opinions, and perhaps give them an airing for time to time, then – for a newspaper of principled republicanism, at least – the answer is clear. Not any longer to allow the job to be filled by accident of birth, but instead to select for the post by democratic means.
Perhaps that is a discussion for another day. But after Thursday’s ruling, the immediate point is simply that mail that comes on his majesty’s service must no longer be kept from his majesty’s subjects.
The reality is that most MPs – and especially those in ministerial and leadership positions – have punishing schedules …
The real question is this: Do we want the people making important decisions on our behalf to be well-rested and clear-minded, or should we keep them sick, stressed-out and exhausted?
One of biggest digital moments in British political history. The #Battlefornumber10 produced 246K. That's 2778Tweets a minute.
I have been played as a fool and when I go home tonight I will look in the mirror and see an honourable fool looking back at me, and I would much rather be an honourable fool in this, and any other matter, than a clever man.
How you treat people in this place is important. This week I went to the leader of the house’s leaving drinks. I went into his private office and was passed by the deputy leader of house yesterday, all of whom would have been aware of what they were proposing to do.
A two-part briefing this morning, as we first digest last night’s interviews, before turning to a light breakfast of the day’s other politics news.
Thanks for 2 mentions, Ed Miliband. Only met once for all of 2 minutes when you embarrassed me with over the top flattery.
Farage tells me: "I might vote Labour."
If the people of Britain were allowed to go to the polls immediately after Cameron & Miliband: the Battle for Number 10, there’d a landslide. And our new prime minister would be Jeremy Paxman.
This was a man who’d clearly been straining at the leash since he left Newsnight; a man who’d spent too many months trapped indoors, fruitlessly barking questions at potplants.
Don’t Jeremy me,’ Jeremy salivated, while giving his trademark thousand-yard death stare. God, he had missed this. So had we.
‘Could you live on a zero-hours contract?’ Paxman demanded. ‘That’s not the question,’ Dave simpered. It was, though, and Paxman asked it again. And again.
The White House is due to issue an ambitious plan to slow the growing and deadly problem of antibiotic resistance over the next five years, one that requires massive investments and policy changes from a broad array of U.S. government health agencies, according to a copy of the report reviewed by Reuters.
NHS bed occupancy rates of higher than 85% can increase the risk of problems such as infections and quality of care, research suggests
Occupancy rates for adult critical care beds in NHS hospitals in England reached 88.1% last month, the highest figure since the data began being published.
Bed occupancy rates of higher than 85% can increase the risk of harm, including hospital acquired infections like MRSA and Clostridium difficile, research suggests.
The direct impact of cancer research isn’t just about performing an experiment, it can also be about using scientific knowledge to inspire people
My journey to a career in cancer research started at a small school in the far north-west corner of the US. It was in my introduction to biology class where I discovered my love for experimental biology. Using cotton buds and agar plates, I swabbed fruit for bacteria before and after rinsing with water to determine if this would impact on its cleanliness (turns out it does, so don’t forget to wash!). I did a graduate degree in biomedical sciences where I solidified my passion for investigating the genetics of human cancer. I am now part of a research team at the Institute of Cancer Research whose ultimate goal is to introduce new treatments, specifically into the paediatric clinic, to help children suffering from cancer.
One of my main focuses is addressing questions such as how tumour cells arise and how they spread throughout the body. I then aim to exploit this information to discover ways to defeat these cancer cells. To accomplish this, I need to develop and maintain a variety of partnerships. My days therefore frequently contain meetings with members of my direct team, scientific collaborators, clinicians or pharmaceutical companies from all over the world. These meetings serve to discuss which systems to use with which novel drugs to determine if these new compounds have the ability to overcome cancer. It is my job to then work with my team members to design, execute, and analyse the data from these experiments. The aim is to provide sufficient data to support the entry of a new drug into the clinical setting.
New film The Voices and Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary reinforce the stereotype that people with schizophrenia are dangerous
It is argued that no publicity is bad publicity when it comes to raising awareness of an issue. But recent portrayals on people living with schizophrenia casts some doubt on this theory. The Voices, a black comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, currently in cinemas, has drawn fierce criticism from mental health campaigners. The movie portrays a murderer who is instructed to kill by the voices in his head, more specifically his talking cat. This film joins a long line of inaccurate and misleading film portrayals – who can forget Alphabet Killer; The Butcher Boy; Me, Myself and Irene; or Psychosomatic to name but a few?
At the same time as this film airs in our multiplexes, the BBC is broadcasting the latest documentary from Louis Theroux – the second part of a two-part programme airs on Sunday. It explores life in an Ohio state psychiatric hospital, where inmates have been declared innocent of crimes by reason of insanity and are being held until declared safe both to themselves and wider society. One of Theroux’s main subjects, Jonathan, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, killed his father. Another, Judith, who is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, refuses to acknowledge that she stabbed a woman on a bus.
If enough people treat you like a lost cause, then sooner or later you end up believing it.
Diabetics with nerve damage are more likely to have an uneven stride and struggle to maintain their balance even when walking on flat ground, a small study finds.
My friend Dan Tunstall Pedoe, who has died aged 75, was a cardiologist who invented the non-invasive diagnosis of certain heart conditions and was a pioneer in sports medicine as the founding chief medical officer of the London Marathon.
Dan and his twin brother, Hugh, were born in Southampton, to Daniel Pedoe, a mathematician and geometer, and Mary Tunstall, a geography lecturer. The family moved to Birmingham, and then, when the twins were eight, to London, occasionally spending the summers with their parents in the US, Singapore and Sudan. Dan studied in London at Haberdashers’ Aske’s, then in Hampstead, and Dulwich college.
For years politicians have applied sticking plasters to the health system rather than consider the long term – time to treat the system as a whole
Emergency departments across the country have just endured one of the toughest winter periods on record. Waiting time breaches reached record highs, emergency admissions soared and thousands of patients faced long waits on trolleys. While patients should always be treated on the basis of need rather than arbitrary waiting time targets, there can be no doubt that rising demand on services coupled with the seasonal spike in demand left patients facing unacceptable delays in treatment this winter.
Sleeping longer one night corresponds with an increase in sexual desire and odds of intercourse the following day for women, according to a new survey-based study.
The three nations hardest hit by West Africa's Ebola epidemic recorded the lowest weekly total of new cases so far this year in the week leading up to March 22, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Many chromosomal abnormalities can be detected early on in the gestation period. But women who test for them often face judgement
Make an excited announcement that you’re pregnant, and you know what people will say next. “Congratulations!” or “When’s the baby due?” are the usual responses. After that, though, and in hushed tones, you might hear something else: “Are you going to have The Testing”?
They are referring to prenatal, genetic, testing, which detects whether a fetus has chromosomal abnormalities ranging from Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), Trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) or Trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), to a number of other conditions including Cystic Fibrosis and Tay Sachs Disease. The prognosis and treatment for each of these diagnoses is very different, but at the center of it is a very complicated question.
Don’t you wish you could take the calm and relaxation of a yoga class with you? That’s exactly what TV anchor-turned-yogi Christine Chen wanted to do when she first started to practice to alleviate back pain.
Late last month, Boston Marathon bombing survivor Rebekah Gregory made headlines with the sad news that she was separating from her husband—who was also injured in the blast—less than one year after their dream wedding.
A fragmented system doesn’t give patients the best outcomes but it remains to be seen if the current trials can avoid previous mistakes
Hard on the heels of the announcement of the devolution of NHS powers in Greater Manchester comes news of the first wave of 29 “vanguard” sites for the new care models programme, heralded last October by Simon Stevens’ Five-Year Forward View for the NHS. These frontrunner sites are meant to lead the way for better integration of health and social care.
Thousands of Lewisham residents have signed a letter to save the health service from private market providers, who cut corners to take profits
The Save Lewisham hospital campaign has this month given a very clear message to our clinical commissioning group (CCG):we want care, not competition – do not sacrifice our clinical services to the market.
NHS guidance states: “CCGs must not act in an anti-competitive way unless they can demonstrate it is in the interests of patients.” The campaign believes it is not in patients’ interests for competition to be integral to the NHS and they do not want their services outsourced.
Sir Muir Gray’s comments on the need for us to get more active ignore that fact that many of us are quite busy enough already
Sir Muir Gray, NHS ex-chief of knowledge – whatever that means – has announced that older people need a “bonfire of slippers”, for the sake of our health. Here we go again. Someone else telling us to take more exercise, eat properly, stop walking about like tortoises, burn our slippers and generally perk up. Doctors should prescribe Pilates instead of drugs, he told the Oxford literary festival, and our silly relatives must give us resistance bands and dumbells for presents, not cardigans or comfy footwear.
Oh spare me from yet another clever-dick dollop of condescension and bossiness. Who is he to tell us to burn our slippers? I like mine. I wear them when it’s cold, to avoid chilblains. Then I jump up, rip them off, pull on my stout walking boots and stride around the parks for an hour with the dog, every day, often passing a stream of elderly neighbours heading for their Pilates class, or out with their dogs. I frequently meet several elderly persons, with whom I have coherent conversations, and many of us wear cardigans, because the weather is still chilly.
As a GP, I know that people differ in their approach to serious illness. Some want to make their own choice about treatment, even if it runs counter to the experts’ advice
Good news that Ashya King, the child with a brain tumour whose parents took him to Prague for treatment, is now cancer-free. Does this happy result vindicate the parents in their spirited quest to defy UK doctors? Does it prove that the NHS cannot offer world-class service? Is it a victory for David over Goliath? Or for patient choice over medical hegemony? I don’t think it is any of those things, although I’m very pleased that he’s doing so well.
A parent whose child is diagnosed with a brain tumour is terrified and will obviously want the best for them. Speaking from experience your instinct is to trust no one. The local hospital may not seem equal to the task and it is only natural to wonder whether something better exists “out there”. There must be a newer, better, less damaging treatment your child is being denied because the NHS is skint. There is such a loss of control when your child is ill. To take control, even if it means charging across Europe, may seem preferable to passively accepting what is on offer.
The Minnesota man who built a 7-foot-tall kidney out of snow in his front yard while waiting for news of a potential organ match has undergone transplant surgery.
Almost 3,000 hospital patients in Scotland are estimated to have been infected with hepatitis C and 78 with HIV after failure to screen blood supplies
David Cameron has apologised on behalf of the government to thousands of people who were infected by hepatitis C and HIV after being given contaminated blood more than 30 years ago.
His apology came after an independent inquiry in Scotland into the widespread contamination of blood supplies by hepatitis C and HIV viruses called for a mass screening exercise for anyone in Scotland who was given blood before September 1991.
A third of the global population doesn’t have access to a loo but forget water-flush ones – composting ‘humanure’ is an easy and viable solution
Most people don’t know how easy it is to compost human waste. All it takes is a container with a lid, a toilet seat, and a regular supply of natural dry materials. In short, you need the humble composting toilet – a much better solution to the global sanitation crisis than installing water-flush loos for the billions of without a toilet.
I started composting humanure, as human waste is often known, in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Our group of EcoSan practitioners – including Joe Jenkins, author of the Humanure Handbook – launched a pilot project in a large tent camp for displaced people in Cite Soleil to see if it was possible to provide clean composting toilets and to collect and compost all the toilet waste on-site.
Letting family members watch while doctors work to bring a loved one back from the brink of death may not hurt patients' odds of survival, a new study suggests.
