‘Deadly postcode lottery’ restricting new cancer treatments in England, doctors say

Cancer patients are being denied access to cutting-edge treatments on the NHS because of a “deadly postcode lottery” in access, doctors have warned.Patients in England are missing out on two innovative forms of radiotherapy that are known to be effective against several forms of the disease and are widely available in other countries, due to “red tape” and lack of funding.The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) and Radiotherapy UK want Wes Streeting to use the government’s new cancer plan, being published this week, to make them widely available.They are urging the health secretary to end what they say are “bureaucratic hurdles” that NHS England imposes, through its complex funding and commissioning policies, on hospitals that want to provide stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) and molecular radiotherapy (MRT).Unlocking the potential of the novel treatments would help improve cancer survival, which is poor in Britain by international standards, both organisations said

NHS patients put at risk by ‘sham investigations’, says ex-CEO of hospital

Patients are being put at risk by NHS bosses launching “sham investigations” into whistleblowers to shut down concerns, a former hospital chief executive who won a £1.4m bullying claim has said.Dr Susan Gilby took over as chief executive at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2018 after it was rocked by the Lucy Letby case. She was awarded the payout – one of the biggest in NHS history – last month after a tribunal ruled she had been unfairly dismissed after raising concerns about alleged bullying and harassment by the chair of the hospital board.An employment judge found that board members of the hospital conspired to unfairly exclude her and deleted documents when she launched legal action

We have allowed poverty to become normalised in our country | Letters

Your editorial on deepening poverty in the UK (27 January) rightly condemns the decade and a half (and counting) of austerity. Millions of people’s lives have been knowingly worsened by the state. To compound this, countless shared neighbourhood spaces have been closed or sold off, meaning there is less opportunity for community togetherness just when it is most needed.The UK has the political and financial resources to create a society full of opportunity and security. Instead, successive governments have allowed poverty to continue and ultra-individualism to become normalised

‘Coffee is just the excuse’: the deaf-run cafe where hearing people sign to order

Wesley Hartwell raised his fists to the barista and shook them next to his ears. He then lowered his fists, extended his thumbs and little fingers, and moved them up and down by his chest, as though milking a cow. Finally, he laid the fingers of one hand flat on his chin and flexed his wrist forward.Hartwell, who has no hearing problems, had just used BSL, British Sign Language, to order his morning latte with normal milk at the deaf-run Dialogue Cafe, based at the University of East London, and thanked Victor Olaniyan, the deaf barista.“I have to be honest: when this cafe first opened near my office, I avoided it because the whole idea made me anxious,” said Hartwell, a lecturer at the university

‘Menopause gold rush’? Boom in hi-tech products as stigma starts to recede

For any bodily function you want to measure these days there is a gadget – a wristband for step-counting, a watch to track your heart rate or a ring for measuring sleep.Now the march of wearable tech is coming to the aid of what some say is a long underserved market: menopausal women.One startup has recently launched a high-end cooling bracelet that kicks into action during a menopausal hot flush. The device is one of a growing number of lifestyle products being launched in this area, which some experts say is growing as stigma around menopause recedes. Companies are developing everything from apps offering dietary advice to devices that track symptoms, hormones and body temperature

Paying kidney donors won’t solve the problem | Letters

It is hard not to feel a certain sadness reading arguments for legalising the sale of kidneys that rely more on provocation than on engagement with how healthcare systems actually work in the UK (The big idea: Should we sell our kidneys?, 25 January).Kidney failure is devastating, and the shortage of donor organs costs lives. About 7,000 people in the UK are currently waiting for a kidney transplant, and six people die every week while waiting. It is therefore concerning to read an argument that implicitly accepts continued late diagnosis of kidney disease and progression to kidney failure as an inevitability, rather than recognising the urgent need to raise awareness of kidney disease and prioritise its prevention before lives reach crisis point.Furthermore, the notion that altruism in the UK has reached its limits, justifying a legal market for human organs, is not supported by public attitudes, social evidence or ethics