Patients at risk without better protection for whistleblowers, says ex-NHS hospitals chief

Patient safety is at risk without better protection for NHS whistleblowers, according to a former health service chair who claims he was forced from his job after raising concerns about reviews into preventable baby deaths.Maxwell Mclean, the former chair of the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS foundation trust, said his treatment made “an absolute mockery of the freedom to speak up” in the NHS.“This isn’t just about me. This kind of failure to be held to account is a danger to our community,” said Mclean. “It is genuinely in the public interest that a chair is supported when they try to hold a trust’s CEO to account

Unpaid carer to challenge DWP allowance overpayment penalty in court

An unpaid carer is to challenge in the courts an “unfair and nonsensical” demand by welfare officials to repay £4,600 in carer’s allowance overpayments, five years after being advised by the same department she was following benefit rules correctly.Andrea Tucker, a part-time charity shop worker who cared full-time for her mother for 15 years, told the Guardian the prospect of going to tribunal had made her ill with stress but she was determined to get justice.“First I was upset, then I was angry, then it just wore me down. But it’s like the Post Office scandal – it takes the little people to stand up,” she said.An ongoing Guardian investigation has revealed how draconian and rigidly enforced carer’s allowance rules saddled hundreds of thousands of people with huge debts in recent years

Dismay as UK poised to cut funding for global vaccination group Gavi

The UK is poised to cut funding to a global vaccination group that has inoculated more than a billion children in developing countries, a move aid groups say would be counterproductive and cost lives.The expected decision is causing particular alarm given that it would come immediately after Donald Trump effectively shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), halting much of its own vaccination work.The UK has consistently been one of the biggest single donors to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), giving the Geneva-based public-private organisation more than £2bn over the last four years.But with the UK aid budget cut back from 0.7% to 0

Keir Starmer takes public HIV test in push to destigmatise testing for virus

Keir Starmer has taken a public HIV test in an effort to destigmatise testing for the virus and to highlight HIV Testing Week.The prime minister took a home test at 10 Downing Street alongside the soul singer Beverley Knight. “It’s really important to do it and I’m really pleased to be able to do it. It’s very easy, very quick,” he said.Told by Richard Angell, the chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, an HIV and sexual health charity, that he was thought to be the first prime minister of a G7, European or Nato nation to take a public HIV test, Starmer said he was surprised

Campaign launched to make public toilets a legal requirement in Britain

It will involve spending more than a penny, but it’s a call that is likely to be viewed sympathetically by anyone who has ever been caught short while out and about.A campaign has been launched to make the provision of public toilets a legal requirement for central government and local authorities after a slump in the number of loos in town centres, parks and other locations.The Legalise Loos campaign is the brainchild of the British Toilet Association (BTA), a not-for-profit members’ organisation, which estimates that the number of public conveniences has fallen by about 40% since 2000.The national shortage has been blamed in part on cash-strapped councils cutting expenditure on public loos in order to protect services they are obliged by law to provide for local people.Lavatory humour has long been a part of British culture and society, but the BTA reckons this is no laughing matter

NHS staff barred from workplace for considering Palestine demonstration

Two NHS professionals were investigated and barred from their workplace for expressing interest in organising a peaceful protest in support of Palestine during their lunch break.The therapist and nurse were accused of posing a threat to the “personal safety” of the staff at Kensington and Chelsea child and adolescent mental health service, and of “bringing the trust into disrepute” for considering the demonstration.The pair, who the Guardian is calling Layla and Maya, were told they were to be investigated and could not enter the building they worked at before being redeployed to new NHS workplaces in London.A three-month investigation into the pair’s conduct found they had no case to answer and that the trust had breached its own disciplinary policy in its treatment of them.The investigator noted that, though there was no intent from the pair to bully other staff members, two staff members did feel unsafe to come into work “as an indirect result” of their intent to organise the protest