Princess of Wales calls for end to ‘stigma’ around addiction

The Princess of Wales has called for an end to the “stigma” surrounding addictions, saying the experiences of those dependent on drugs, alcohol or gambling are “shaped by fear, shame and judgment”.Catherine, who is a patron of the charity Forward Trust supporting recovering addicts, said more open conversations were needed to bring the issue “out of the shadows” and for society to show “compassion and love” to those affected.“Addiction is not a choice or a personal failing but a complex mental health condition that should be met with empathy and support,” she said in a message marking addiction awareness week, which runs to 30 November.“But still, even now in 2025, people’s experience of addiction is shaped by fear, shame and judgment. This needs to change

More than 2,000 trafficked children and lone child asylum seekers missing from UK councils’ care

More than 2,000 children who have been trafficked or who arrived in the UK alone to claim asylum disappeared from social services’ care last year, according to freedom of information data shared with the Guardian.The authors of a report, Until Harm Ends, submitted FoI requests to children’s services departments in councils across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland asking for information about trafficked children and those who arrived alone in the UK and claimed asylum, who then went missing after being taken into care.Data from 135 local authorities revealed that out of 2,335 children identified as having been trafficked or suspected of having been trafficked, 864 (37%) were reported missing.A total of 141 local authorities responded to questions about lone child asylum seekers in their care, who amounted to 11,999 children. Of these, 1,501 (13%) were reported missing

Hospitals must get smaller to stop NHS ‘permacrisis’, thinktank urges

Hospitals need to become smaller, with fewer beds, to help save the NHS from its “permacrisis”, a thinktank has said.The role hospitals play needs to undergo “a fundamental reinvention” to help them escape the overcrowding that has become widespread over the last decade, according to the thinktank Re:State.Politicians and NHS leaders will have to be prepared to push through a potentially controversial programme of downsizing hospitals for the service to remain viable, it adds.The thinktank – formerly called Reform – argues in a new report that doing so will save the NHS billions of pounds, lead to better care for patients and relieve pressure on overworked staff.Hospitals could shrink in size, shedding thousands of beds, as the result of a massive expansion of care delivered in and near people’s homes

Private finance plans for NHS buildings | Letters

Labour MPs are absolutely right to reject Wes Streeting’s plan to use private capital to build neighbourhood health centres (Labour MPs urge Reeves to drop private finance plans for NHS buildings, 21 November). Like a family using a payday loan to buy their home, yes, we’d end up with a building, but we’ll have to sacrifice meals to keep up with the payments.Given Rachel Reeves’s lack of fiscal wiggle room, no one believes that the NHS’s budget will increase year-on-year to keep pace with the combined financial impact of inflation, the growing health needs of our ageing population and possible rising drug prices. So adding a new private finance debt burden to this cocktail will only result in trusts skimping on the only one of those things they have control over: patient care.Research has shown that some trusts pay out more in annual debt repayments for private finance initiatives (PFI) than they do for medicines for patients

Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap have increased poverty

“I’ve sat and cried many times, feeling like I’ve let my kids down,” is the heartbreaking description one Kent mother gives of the difficulty she has meeting her family’s needs.With four children still under 13, the family live in a rented flat in the town of Herne Bay on the county’s north coast. She does not come to the door, but her partner passes a handwritten note relaying their meagre existence on benefits as the Guardian joins the local food bank’s morning delivery round.“I have to be careful with electric and gas, and food has to be £1 frozen food,” she writes. “Snacks are a very rare treat

Bereaved parents face ‘harrowing’ delays for NHS postmorterms

Bereaved parents are enduring “harrowing” delays of more than a year to find out why their child died because the NHS has too few specialist doctors to perform postmortems.The shortage of paediatric and perinatal pathologists is revealed in a report by the Royal College of Pathologists published on Sunday. It warns that the situation is “dire”, services in some parts of the UK have “totally collapsed” and families are paying the price.The NHS has so few of those doctors that in some regions the bodies of babies and children who have died have to be taken elsewhere for examination, for example from Northern Ireland to Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool, the college says.“Our service is in crisis”, said Dr Clair Evans, the chair of the college’s advisory committee that represents pathologists who specialise in the care of under-18s