Overseas-trained doctors leaving the UK in record numbers

Record numbers of overseas-trained doctors are quitting the UK, leaving the NHS at risk of huge gaps in its workforce, with hostility towards migrants blamed for the exodus.In all, 4,880 doctors who qualified in another country left the UK during 2024 – a rise of 26% on the 3,869 who did so the year before – figures from the General Medical Council reveal.NHS leaders, senior doctors and the GMC warned that the increased denigration of and abuse directed at migrants in the UK was a significant reason for the rise in foreign medics leaving.“It’s really worrying that so many highly skilled and highly valued international doctors the NHS just can’t afford to lose are leaving in their droves,” said Daniel Elkeles, the chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers.“We wouldn’t have an NHS if we hadn’t for many years recruited talented and valued people from all around the world

Prozac ‘no better than placebo’ for treating children with depression, experts say

Clinical guidelines should no longer recommend Prozac for children, according to experts, after research showed it had no clinical benefit for treating depression in children and adolescents.Globally one in seven 10- to 19-year-olds have a mental health condition, according to the World Health Organization. In the UK, about a quarter of older teenagers and up to a fifth of younger children have anxiety, depression or other mental health problems.In the UK, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidance says under-18s with moderate to severe depression can be prescribed antidepressants alongside therapy.But a new review of trial data by academics in Austria and the UK concluded that fluoxetine, sold under the brand name of Prozac among others, is clinically no better than placebo drugs in treating depression in children, and should therefore no longer be prescribed to them

Councils in north of England and Midlands to get more funding in shake-up

Deprived towns and cities in the Midlands and the north of England are the big winners in a shake-up of local authority funding that will redirect cash from affluent rural areas to urban councils hit hardest by austerity.Ministers said the changes put in place a fairer system that recognised the extra needs and weaker council tax-raising powers of councils in so-called “left behind” areas. It guarantees them real-terms funding increases for the next three years.“People living in the places that suffered most from austerity will finally see their areas turned around,” the local government minister, Alison McGovern, said in a parliamentary statement.The changes, which will be introduced from April, before critical local elections in May, could see funding boosts for Reform-led councils in the north with high levels of deprivation, such as Durham and Lancashire, as well as in Kent, Reform’s flagship council

Keeping youths in care out of trouble | Letter

Diverting young people in care from the youth justice system and the associated criminalisation may help their future careers (Children in care who lash out may no longer face automatic arrest under UK review, 17 November). However, international research studies have shown that reducing the chances of young people being involved in crime to begin with are more effective.These include: stable family foster care placements; doing well at school; extending foster care placements beyond 18 years of age; having positive birth family, extended family, partner and social relationships; being settled in accommodation on leaving care; and being supported by leaving-care teams providing personal, careers, housing and financial support.For too many young people these opportunities are lacking or inconsistent, even in the face of substantial evidence detailing their unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system, very poor outcomes and the associated costs to young people and society – see In Care, Out of Trouble, the report of Lord Laming’s review, published by the Prison Reform Trust in 2016.Prof Mike SteinUniversity of York Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section

How prohibition-based policies caused a cannabis problem | Letters

Your article correctly raised concerns about the harms of higher-strength cannabis on people vulnerable to psychosis (‘I’d run down the road thinking I was God’: a day at the cannabis psychosis clinic, 16 November). However, it didn’t explain how previous prohibition‑based policies designed to reduce cannabis use have driven up the strength of street cannabis, the source of most cannabis for people with psychosis, thus making the problem worse.Furthermore, growing data from the Drug Science T21 project and other prescription databases globally shows that medical cannabis can alleviate a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders, without inducing psychosis. Any suggestion that rates of cannabis-related psychosis could be reduced by limiting medical cannabis access is flawed and is likely to harm patients currently benefiting from it.Prof D Nutt and Prof Ilana CromeDrug Science Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section

Musical comfort at the end of your life | Brief letters

Readers who were moved by the article on Kate Munger’s Threshold Choirs (‘It was the last time Mum smiled at me’: the choirs singing to the dying in three-part harmony, 17 November) may like to know that similarly, in the UK, Companion Voices sings for people at the end of life, creating a gentle supportive soundscape. Founded by Judith Silver 12 years ago, more than a dozen groups now offer this voluntary service across England, with more planned.Kay AshtonWallingford, Oxfordshire John Crace’s analysis of Keir Starmer’s hapless, hopeless Labour government (‘I thought the grownups were back in charge!’: John Crace on how Labour shattered his expectations, 19 November) was, as usual, witty and shrewd – apart from his observation that the government’s right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Actually, it’s worse than that: the right hand doesn’t even know what the right hand is doing.Prof Chris WalshHawarden, Flintshire Zoe Williams’ reflection on the naming of storms (I keep trying to name storms