Employees' anger as Northampton company confirms tuberculosis outbreak

Employees' anger as Northampton company confirms tuberculosis outbreak Staff at a Northampton firm have reacted angrily to news that some of them have caught TB after bosses failed to inform them of a case a year ago.

Dataforce, which is based in Moulton Park, employing around 200 people, has admitted that it is working with Public Health England to screen employees for the serious lung condition. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Is the number of GPs falling across the UK?

Is the number of GPs falling across the UK? In an analysis carried out exclusively for the BBC, Billy Palmer draws on published data sources to assess the number of GPs compared to the size of the UK population over time. Nuffield Trust

See also:

• New GP workforce figures 'disheartening but unsurprising', says RCGP Royal College of General Practitioners
• GP pressure: Numbers show first sustained drop for 50 years BBC News
• GPs' surgeries 'in crisis': 'You can't get an appointment' BBC News

Assisted suicide: Paul Lamb renews bid for right to die

Assisted suicide: Paul Lamb renews bid for right to die A man who lives with chronic and excruciating pain has begun a fresh legal challenge to the law that criminalises assisted suicide.

Paul Lamb, 63, was paralysed from the neck down following a car crash nearly 30 years ago.

He lost a Supreme Court case in 2014, but argues that opinions on assisted dying have changed since then.

He says keeping him alive could be considered torture, and that the current law breaches his human rights. BBC News

Revealed: 11-hour days, 41 daily contacts and half of GPs working unsafe levels

Revealed: 11-hour days, 41 daily contacts and half of GPs working unsafe levels More than half of GPs say they are working above safe limits, on average completing 11-hour days and dealing with a third more patients than they say they should be, findings from Pulse’s major workload survey reveal.

Full-time family doctors are on average dealing with 41 patients in a day – when GPs said the safe limit should be 30, according to Pulse’s survey of 1,681 UK GPs.

See also:

• GPs are seeing TWICE as many patients as is safe The Daily Mail
• You shouldn't see your doctor in afternoon as they 'are drained of empathy' after 20 patients The Daily Telegraph
• One in 10 GPs see twice as many patients as safe limit, survey finds The Guardian
• Overtired GPs openly making mistakes as new research reveals doctors see more patients than is safe The Independent

British people having less sex because of internet and busyness of modern life researchers say

British people having less sex because of internet and busyness of modern life researchers say British people are having less sex than in previous years, with scientists blaming the decline on the internet and the ”busyness” of modern life.

According to new data, fewer than half of Britons have sex at least once a week, and rates are dwindling.

The steepest declines were among people over the age of 25 and those who were married or living together, said researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The Independent

See also:

• Changes in, and factors associated with, frequency of sex in Britain: evidence from three National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) BMJ
• British people 'having less sex' than previously BBC News
• Fewer than HALF of men and women now have sex at least once a week The Daily Mail

NHS nursing crisis worsened by Brexit exodus

NHS nursing crisis worsened by Brexit exodus Dramatic fall in number of nurses and midwives from EU countries causes alarm

Almost 5,000 nurses and midwives from EU27 countries have quit the NHS in the past two years, with many of those identifying Brexit as the trigger.

The number of EU-trained nurses and midwives working in the NHS across the UK fell from a record high of 38,024 in March 2017 to 33,035 in March this year, a drop of 4,989, according to figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which regulates both professions. The Guardian

See also:

• Registration data report Nursing and Midwifery Council
• Number of  foreign nurses coming to UK from beyond Europe has more than doubled in a year The Daily Telegraph
• NHS plans global recruitment drive for thousands of nurses People Management Magazine

Call for poor and disabled to be given NHS fitness trackers

Call for poor and disabled to be given NHS fitness trackers Vulnerable groups ‘could be left behind by technology revolution in medicine’, widening health inequality

Fitness trackers should be prescribed on the NHS to stop a further widening of health inequality, a new review has warned.

Some of the poorest communities and disabled people could be left behind by the technology revolution in medicine unless action is taken, according to the report by the Social Market Foundation. The Guardian

Alcohol consumption has dropped 10 per cent since 90s, with one in four adults turning their back on booze

Alcohol consumption has dropped 10 per cent since 90s, with one in four adults turning their back on booze Almost one in four adults in the UK now chooses not to drink alcohol, with a sharp drop in average consumption, a Lancet study shows.

The research found that while average intake is rising across the world, the trend is reversed in the UK. The Daily Telegraph

See also:

• Global alcohol exposure between 1990 and 2017 and forecasts until 2030: a modelling study The Lancet
• Global alcohol consumption has increased 70% in less than 30 years, new research shows The Independent

Dementia patients must receive part of a £2.4billion NHS fund to help with care costs, MPs say

Dementia patients must receive part of a £2.4billion NHS fund to help with care costs, MPs say Dementia patients must be given part of a £2.4 billion NHS fund to help with ‘unfair and unsustainable’ care costs, MPs will say today.

A cross-party group of 68 MPs demanded sufferers be given a personal budget of thousands of pounds a year.

This could be spent on the care costs required to live with the disease such as home adaptations and care home costs - which are up to 15 per cent more expensive for patients with dementia as they are deemed more difficult to look after. The Daily Mail