Category: Health

Drug use appears to be changing in England – both in the types of drugs people take and their potency, according to our latest survey of adult mental health and wellbeing. The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) began in 1993 and is the longest running mental health survey series in the world. This national study […]

A roster of high profile advocates, including sportsmen, actors, two previous prime ministers and over 100 MPs, have recently joined patient groups and charities in calling for a UK national prostate cancer screening programme. However, the UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) has announced its draft decision to advise the government against routine population screening for […]

The NHS didn’t receive a great deal of specific attention in Rachel Reeves’ budget. She mentioned it, but in fairly general terms around plans to invest and cut waiting lists. But the overall plan presented by the chancellor effectively incorporates the NHS into a high tax, high spend economic model. Those revenue-raising taxes include a […]

Bird flu viruses are a particular threat to humans because they can replicate at temperatures higher than a typical fever, one of the body’s ways of stopping viruses in their tracks. This is according to new research led by the University of Cambridge and the University of Glasgow and funded primarily by the Medical Research […]

Government Approval Secured Minister for Mental Health Mary Butler TD has secured Cabinet approval for more than 300 proposed amendments to the Mental Health Bill 2024, which will now proceed to the Seanad for Committee Stage debate on 2 December 2025. The legislation, containing over 220 sections, is described as person‑centred and designed to safeguard […]

For anyone facing cancer, the treatment options can feel brutally familiar: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of them all. But a new approach is beginning to offer something very different. By using nothing more than precisely controlled sound waves, histotripsy can destroy tumours without cutting the skin or burning healthy tissue. Histotripsy uses technology […]

Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas recently revealed that she’d “thought that was it” after a fish bone became lodged in her throat. Ballas’s terrifying ordeal lasted for 20 minutes, with the judge struggling to breathe until her hair and makeup artist managed to dislodge the bone using the Heimlich manoeuvre (also known as abdominal […]

Climate change is already shaping our wellbeing. It affects mental health, spreads infectious diseases, disrupts work, damages food supplies and forces families to leave their homes because of conflict, hunger or flooding. Wellbeing refers to everything that enables people to live healthy, safe and meaningful lives. It includes physical and mental health, access to food, […]

When he saw the newspaper headlines in 2002, James Partridge was furious. Severely burned in a fire at 18, he spent his life advocating for people with “visible difference” through charities like Changing Faces and Face Equality International. Yet he found himself used as tabloid fodder in discussions about face transplants: how much better might […]

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) have launched a UK-wide survey to gather insights from the animal research community. This forms part of a major fact-finding initiative focused on the nation’s animal research facilities and resources. A panel of experts from across the field is leading this […]