Tom Butler obituary

My friend Tom Butler, who has died of lymphoma after a short illness aged 73, was a former head of NHS mental health services in inner-city Manchester.Alongside his career in social work and mental health, Tom was a historian of social policy in the UK and author of several books, including Mental Health, Social Policy and the Law, published in 1985. As a young social worker, he pioneered the use of computer databases to improve child protection while working for Berkshire social services.He was born in Gloucester to Irish parents, Margaret (nee Bolger) and Patrick Butler, a draughtsman in the aircraft industry. Tom attended St Peter’s Roman Catholic junior school in Gloucester, where we first met

‘A job is like finding a needle in a haystack’: how Dudley became centre of UK’s youth jobs crisis

It is a rainy day in Dudley and Alex Jones and his friends are taking shelter under some trees in the car park of the college of technology. Clad in blue overalls on a mid-morning break, the students are hopeful their automotive qualifications will stand them in good stead for finding work.Here in the heart of the Black Country, however, that is not always guaranteed. “Trying to find a part-time job is like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” says the 17-year-old trainee mechanic.“They don’t care what grades you have, they just want experience,” chimes in Thomas, his course mate

Emma Barnett says she felt ‘mugged, robbed’ after perimenopause at 38

Emma Barnett has said experiencing perimenopause at the age of 38 felt as if she had been “mugged, robbed” of her identity.The broadcaster, now 40, said on her new BBC podcast, Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett, that it was the “first time in my life I haven’t really wanted to be a woman – it’s the first time I’ve thought, I’d really quite like to be a bloke”.She said perimenopause made her feel as though she had lost her identity, and that she was still waiting to “come back” to who she was before.Speaking to guest Kate Thornton, she said: “I do feel there has been a theft. I do feel there’s no emergency number to call

NHS to take over state-of-the-art hospital from private health group in ‘windfall’

An NHS trust is taking over a state-of-the-art hospital from a leading private healthcare group after it failed to attract enough paying patients to use it.Barts Health trust in London will turn Nuffield Health’s facility into a dedicated NHS breast cancer diagnosis and treatment centre when it gains control next month.The not-for-profit private health operator took a 30-year-lease on two dilapidated empty Barts trust buildings in 2022 and spent £65m refurbishing them for a hospital for heart disease and joint problems.But it has decided to shut the hospital next week less than four years into an arrangement that was intended to grow its business and generate millions of pounds in rental income for Barts Health.It is selling the lease back to the NHS trust, where senior figures are delighted that Nuffield’s setback has resulted in what one called “a windfall” and chance to expand the care it provides

Call to give UK cancer patients legal right to be treated within two months

Cancer patients should have the legal right to be treated within two months, even if that means the NHS has to pay for them to be treated privately or abroad, according to international experts.Writing in the Lancet Oncology, they say cancer patients should have the legally enforceable entitlement to be treated within 62 days of an urgent referral by a GP.This would bring the UK in line with Denmark, where cancer patients already have a statutory right to timely treatment.International research shows that every four weeks of delay in cancer treatment increases the risk of death by up to 10%. But the NHS has not met its target for 85% of cancer patients to start treatment within 62 days since December 2015

Lammy says he was right not to discuss mistakenly freed prisoner at PMQs

David Lammy has said the government has “a mountain to climb” to tackle the prisons crisis and insisted he was “not equipped with all the detail” when questioned in parliament the previous day about a mistaken prisoner release.After a fraudster mistakenly freed from prison handed himself in on Thursday, the justice secretary said he had been right not to provide details to MPs at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday about the release of a sex offender who remains at large.It follows intense pressure over the mistaken release of the two prisoners from HMP Wandsworth in south London. William Smith, a convicted fraudster, was filmed waving to cameras and hugging his partner before he walked back into jail on Thursday, having been mistakenly released by a court on Monday.Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, a sex offender from Algeria who was released from Wandsworth by mistake last week, remains at large