Alarm in health service over Palantir staff being given NHS email accounts

Health service staff have expressed alarm that engineers working for controversial tech company Palantir have been given NHS email accounts.Employees using NHS.net email accounts have access to a directory with the contact details of up 1.5 million staff. Sources believe Palantir staff were granted the same access

Scientists develop AI tool to spot heart failure risk five years before it strikes

Oxford scientists have developed a simple AI tool that can predict the risk of heart failure five years before it develops.More than 60 million people worldwide have the condition in which the heart cannot pump blood around the body as well as it should. Spotting cases before they develop into heart failure would be a big step forward, experts say. Doctors could prepare better for and manage the condition at an earlier stage or even prevent it entirely.The AI tool, developed by a team at the University of Oxford, looks for signs in fat around the heart that indicate whether it is inflamed and unhealthy

Doctors’ strike timed to cause havoc over Easter break, says NHS England chief

The latest strike by resident doctors in England has been “deliberately timed to cause havoc” by coinciding with hospital staff’s Easter holidays, the head of the NHS has claimed.Hospitals have struggled to find enough doctors to replace those who have refused to work during the six-day walkout, Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, said.Many thousands of resident doctors belonging to the British Medical Association were on strike on Wednesday, the second day of a six-day walkout – that is the longest yet in their long-running dispute with the government over pay and jobs. It is the union’s 15th strike since March 2023.In a letter to NHS bosses on Monday night, Mackey said that the doctors’ stoppage risked setting back the health service’s recent progress at improving waiting times for care and the public’s satisfaction with it

Landlords evicting tenants before law to prevent practice comes into force in England

Increasing numbers of landlords are evicting tenants at the last minute before the law changes to outlaw the practice in next month, charities have said.The renters’ union Acorn told the Guardian that no-fault evictions made up one in five of the reports they received from members in October, rising to nearly one in three by January.The Renters’ Rights Act, which was in development last year and will come into effect on 1 May 2026, will abolish section 21 of the existing Housing Act, which allows landlord to evict without providing a justification to the court.“This isn’t a coincidence. Landlords are clearly rushing to force through last-minute evictions before the ban comes into force

‘People are so judgmental’: the growing cohort of over-55s facing homelessness

Richard Hewett, who was forced to sleep in his car when his relationship broke down, is one of many in the UK hit by rising costs and a lack of social housingWhen Richard Hewett’s relationship broke down, he was forced to leave his partner’s council house – but found his disability benefits didn’t stretch far enough to get him his own flat in his Essex home town. He resorted to the next best option: sleeping in his car.It wasn’t what he had expected, aged 59. At 6ft 2in, he squeezed into a Ford Focus and struggled to sleep. When he broke his ankle, he couldn’t look after it properly, contracted sepsis and had his leg amputated

World held hostage by reliance on fossil fuels, Christiana Figueres warns – and climate health impacts are ‘mother of all injustices’

Countries are being “held hostage” by their reliance on fossil fuels, a former UN climate chief has warned, describing the health impacts of climate change as “the mother of all injustices”.Christiana Figueres, an international climate negotiator who helped deliver the Paris agreement signed in 2016, made the comments as she was announced on Wednesday as co-chair of a Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality.Lancet Commissions are international collaborations that analyse major global health issues and influence policy. This commission will examine legal frameworks to hold countries accountable for the health harms of sea-level rise. It will report by September 2027