Government

The US government last week released a report that the threat of a nuclear device used in an act of terrorism is high in the next couple of years. In this episode we discuss the some concepts of the medical care required to those exposed to radiation as well as blast injuries. I hope this is information that none of you will ever need.  

Cutting money from April contradicts government promise to put mental and physical healthcare on an equal footing, they say  

Andrew Sparrow’s rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including the government announcing whether it is accepting pay review body recommendations covering health staff and other public sector workers  

Hundreds of thousands of NHS staff get lower-than-expected rise as government rejects pay review body's recommendations  

Despite the BMA’s determined efforts to secure a pay increase for doctors, the Westminster government has again chosen to undermine the value of the medical workforce, by announcing another real terms cut in doctors’ pay in England.    

The true cost of fraud inside the NHS could be more than £5bn a year, more than 20 times the official government figure, a new report has warned.  

It’s late at night. You’re reading a news article about a section of the world with which you’re hardly familiar, but the story strikes a chord. That seemingly innocent village in South Sudan, bombed ruthlessly by its faceless government, but there at the center of it all is a 14-year-old boy, his two arms severed by the violence.  

Questions are being raised about the government's drive in England to increase dementia diagnosis rates.  

Health warnings are issued by the government as pollution spreading across England is forecast to hit high levels.  

Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with an ever expanding list of diseases, and with this has come almost tonic-like claims for vitamin D supplementation. In observational studies, low vitamin D status has been associated with increased risk of multiple sclerosis, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, breast cancer, autoimmunity, and allergy.1 The UK government has advised that all pregnant women, and children under 5 years, should take 400 IU vitamin D daily; a recent news story, however, reported a survey conducted by a charity which suggested that only 26% of pregnant women and 46% of healthcare professionals are aware of these guidelines.2 The most recent musculoskeletal trend seems to be the attribution of childhood problems such as Blount’s disease and slipped femoral epiphyses to vitamin D deficiency and the incorrect conflation of rickets with low serum calcidiol (25-hydroxyvitamin D3) concentrations.3 So are health professionals causing ill health through their lack of awareness and advocacy of vitamin D supplementation?