As an NHS boss, there is little I can do to reassure EU staff about Brexit

As an NHS boss, there is little I can do to reassure EU staff about Brexit

About 10% of my trust’s workforce is from the EU. We urgently need some clarity before those staff abandon the NHS Should we be worried about Brexit?” As a chief executive of west London mental health NHS trust, I make a point of getting out into our diverse and geographically dispersed services as often as…

NHS waiting times ‘driving people to turn to private treatment’

NHS waiting times ‘driving people to turn to private treatment’

Report says private providers have seen 15 to 25% annual rise in ‘self-payers’ as patients resort to using savings or loans Growing numbers of patients are paying for private treatment to beat rationing and delays for treatment imposed by the cash-strapped NHS. People who do not have health insurance are increasingly paying up to £14,880 for…

Tackling health anxiety could save NHS over £400m a year, study finds

Tackling health anxiety could save NHS over £400m a year, study finds

Researchers find people who have had a serious illness fear it will happen again and symptoms persist when nothing is wrong The NHS could save more than £420m a year by offering treatment for health anxiety and “cyberchondria”, a psychological ailment caused by people obsessively looking up their symptoms online, a study has estimated. The study, funded…

Ministers drop ‘misguided’ plans to privatise NHS Professionals

Ministers drop ‘misguided’ plans to privatise NHS Professionals

Labour welcomes U-turn on sell-off of employment agency that supplies doctors and nurses to hospitals The government has abandoned plans to privatise an NHS employment agency it owns that supplies doctors and nurses to hospitals to ease their understaffing. Labour welcomed what it called “a major U-turn on a misguided policy from a government with no solution…

‘Listen to women’: UK doctors issued with first guidance on endometriosis

‘Listen to women’: UK doctors issued with first guidance on endometriosis

Disease, which causes crippling pain and can lead to infertility, affects 176 million women worldwide and currently takes seven to eight years to diagnose Years of pain, but no diagnosis: one woman’s experience of endometriosis Doctors are being advised to listen to what women tell them about crippling pelvic and period pain and look out…