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Society | The Guardian
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- US regulators approve new non-opioid drug to treat acute pain
Oral drug from Vertex, branded as Journavx, represents alternative to addictive opioids that have fueled US crisis
The US Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug to treat acute pain, the health regulator said on Thursday, offering a first-of-its-kind alternative to addictive opioid painkillers that have fueled a national crisis.
The Vertex Pharmaceuticals oral drug, branded Journavx, works by blocking pain signals at their source, unlike opioids, which trigger the brain’s reward centers as they travel through the blood and then attach to neural receptors, leading to addiction and abuse.
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- ‘Epidemic’ of violence against women and girls in UK is getting worse – report
National Audit Office says government attempts to tackle misogynistic violence are hampered by poor coordination
An “epidemic of violence against women and girls” in the UK is getting worse despite years of government promises and strategies, a highly critical report from Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said.
The National Audit Office report comes four years after a major government response to violence against women and girls (VAWG) was launched after the murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard.
The Home Office did not have “centrally coordinated funding” for VAWG, unlike that for the 2021 illegal drugs strategy, and had underspent on its own VAWG budget by an average of 15% between 2021-22 and 2023-24.
There was no consistent definition for VAWG – the Home Office includes all victims, while police forces only include women and girls – which “made it difficult to measure progress in a consistent way”.
While 78% of the commitments in the strategy had been met by July 2024, several were not new, and “most” related to additional funding, holding meetings and publication of new guidance.
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- Microplastics in placentas linked to premature births, study suggests
Tiny plastic pollution more than 50% higher in placentas from preterm births than in those from full-term births
A study has found microplastic and nanoplastic pollution to be significantly higher in placentas from premature births than in those from full-term births.
The levels were much higher than previously detected in blood, suggesting the tiny plastic particles were accumulating in the placenta. But the higher average levels found in the shorter pregnancies were a “big surprise” for the researchers, as longer terms could be expected to lead to more accumulation.
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- NHS England told to scrap improvement pledges and prioritise cutting waiting times
Plans shelved include earlier cancer diagnosis, boosting women’s health and expanding access to dental care
NHS England is scrapping plans to diagnose more cancers early, boost women’s health and ramp up childhood vaccinations after ministers told it to prioritise cutting waiting times.
The health service is also abandoning pledges to expand access to dental treatment, give more people drugs to prevent strokes and enhance care for those with learning disabilities.
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- New lawsuit hits Oregon city at heart of supreme court homeless camps ruling
Non-profit alleges Grants Pass shelters are inaccessible and that many have ‘no legal option for their continued survival’
The small Oregon city at the heart of a major US supreme court ruling last year that allowed cities across the country to fine and jail unhoused people sleeping outside is facing a fresh lawsuit over its anti-camping rules.
Disability Rights Oregon sued Grants Pass on Thursday, accusing it of violating a state law requiring cities’ camping regulations to be “objectively reasonable”.
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Community Care
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- Council to take children’s services back in-house
A council has voted to take back control of its children’s services, six years after it outsourced them to a company at the direction of the Department for Education (DfE). Councillors in Reading unanimously backed a proposal not to renew… -
- Should the government use AI to reform public services?
Earlier this month, prime minister Keir Starmer announced his intention to “harness” artificial intelligence (AI) to “transform public services”. Launching the government’s AI opportunities action plan, Starmer said AI had the potential to make services “more human” by freeing up… -
- MPs back plan to regulate agency staff use in children’s services
MPs have backed a plan enabling the government to regulate the use of agency staff in local authority children’s services. The committee scrutinising the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill affirmed the measure, without any dissent, in a debate on the… -
- Social care leaders sound alarm over 120% hike in sponsorship fees for overseas staff
Social care leaders have sounded the alarm over a planned 120% hike in the fees they must pay to sponsor overseas staff to work for them on skilled worker visas. The government has tabled legislation to raise the certificate of… -
- No agency social workers used in statutory services in Northern Ireland since September 2023
No agency social workers have been used in Northern Ireland’s health and social care (HSC) trusts since September 2023, the region’s health minister has said. Mike Nesbitt hailed the success of a ban – introduced in June 2023 – on…
HuffPost UK - Athena2 - All Entries (Public)
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- 4 Specific Signs You May Be Experiencing Parental Burnout
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- 'My T*t Was Out': Mum Details Unfortunate Mishap While Taking Delivery Post-Breastfeeding
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- Badenoch Slaps Down Priti Patel For Defending Last Tory Government's Immigration Record
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- 5 Unusual Things Neurologists Do Every Day To Lower Their Risk Of Dementia
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- Sweat Easily? You Might Have This Condition
Blogs
Social Care Network | The Guardian
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- 'Don’t expect a survivor to tell you her experience of undergoing FGM'
Specialist social workers explain how they support women and girls affected by the practice
When social worker Sam Khalid [not her real name] first began working with women affected by female genital mutilation (FGM), she found there wasn’t much awareness of the brutal practice in the UK.
She was in her first year at university, in 2011, on a placement with a Women’s Aid team. “The service I was placed in was just starting its FGM unit, and I learned about the practice and met and spoke to many survivors,” she says.
This article was amended on 12 December 2018. An earlier version referenced statistics from a recent Guardian article which was taken down after the Guardian was notified of a fundamental error in the official data on which it was based.
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- We want to attract the right people with the right values to social care | Caroline Dinenage
New government recruitment campaign will raise the image and profile of the sector
This year we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of our amazing NHS, but we must not forget that adult social care is also marking 70 years. The National Assistance Act 1948 that created many of the core elements of the modern social care system came into effect on the same day as the NHS act.
In the NHS’s birthday month we have heard many stories of the dedicated nurses, doctors and support staff who have been saving and transforming lives across its seven decades. While these staff are rightly seen as the backbone of the NHS, hardworking care workers, nurses, social workers, managers and occupational therapists are, likewise, the foundation of the adult social care sector – and they have been on the same 70-year journey as colleagues in health. They are two sides of the same coin – inseparable and essential to each other.
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- The UK project giving refugees another chance at childhood
Young refugees face unspeakable trauma to get here. But a cross-charity initiative is helping them to rebuild their lives
It is hard to be an adult when you feel like you haven’t had the chance to be a child.
This simple statement has stayed with me over the last 12 months of working with young refugees and asylum seekers. Among them, a 17-year-old boy forced to sleep in a railway station for months; and another who witnessed the killing of his brother and father and escaped from his home country in fear of his life.
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- UN: spend an extra £5tn by 2030 to tackle global 'care crisis'
Report highlights risk of rising inequality against women worldwide
The world economy faces a looming “care crisis” risking further division between men and women across the planet, according to a UN report calling for governments and companies worldwide to spend at least an extra $7tn (£5.3tn) on care by 2030.
Making the case for spending on support for children, old people and the neediest in society to double by the end of the next decade, the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned demographic changes alone mean the current path for care funding falls far short of requirements.
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- Theresa May got it wrong with her cash boost for the NHS. Here's why
Assessing what the health service needs is essential before giving it more money to meet demand
Four key things were missing from Theresa May’s announcement of extra money for the NHS.
There was no admission that there is an NHS crisis that needs tackling. Or that money is needed now for both the the health service and social care. Without this emergency cash injection, there will be insufficient time and resource to make the necessary preparations to avoid a repeat – or indeed worsening – of last year’s winter crisis in the NHS and social care with the trail of waits, delays, suffering and extra deaths that accompanied it.
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Opinion | The Guardian
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- The Guardian view on the Washington DC plane crash: Trump’s warped priorities | Editorial
The president is more concerned with attacking the federal government than with putting safety first
Few stretches of airspace on the planet are as busy or as carefully monitored as the skies above Washington DC. Commercial and military aircraft are on the move there at all times. The greatest concentration is around Reagan National airport, the city’s principal domestic hub, which sits on the west bank of the Potomac River within sight of the Capitol dome.
No one yet knows how a Black Hawk military helicopter collided with an American Eagle flight from Wichita above the Potomac on Wednesday evening. But the destruction was total. No survivors have been found from among the 64 people on board the flight from Kansas or among the three-strong crew of the helicopter. By early Thursday, the rescue effort was already a recovery operation. Bodies were being lifted from the river’s icy waters through the day.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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- The Guardian view on the children’s bill: academy freedoms are beside the point | Editorial
The government deserves praise for delivering breakfast clubs, a home schooling register and admissions reform
The fuss kicked up by the Conservatives about the education bill over the past month has been about trying to land political blows – not making the lives of children in England safer or better. MPs’ horror at sexual exploitation gangs is sincere, but attempting to bolt a public inquiry on to Bridget Phillipson’s bill was an ill-judged attempt to sour the mood around an important piece of progressive legislation. That amendment was defeated. But ministers were rattled when Kemi Badenoch echoed complaints by academy leaders that the bill will cramp their style. Wording was altered so that they will not, after all, be obliged to pay teachers in accordance with nationally agreed pay scales.
Ministers should now draw a line and stand their ground. The shortage of teachers in key subjects is a problem that got worse under the Conservatives. It is questionable whether tighter pay rules would have caused the harm claimed, and Sir Keir Starmer was right to stress that there is nothing remarkable about requiring teachers in all schools to be qualified. Mrs Badenoch’s jibe – are Olympians not qualified to teach PE? – was a rhetorical flourish, not a serious point.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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- Medicine that crosses the mind/body divide | Letters
Readers reflect on Aida Edemariam’s piece about what can be a fine line between physical symptoms and conditions dismissed as being ‘all in your head’
While enjoying Aida Edemariam’s review of current neuro-psychological research (The mind/body revolution: how the division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illness fails us all, 26 January), I disagree with her assertion that “A conceptual division between mind and body has underpinned western culture, and medicine for centuries. Illnesses are ‘physical’, or they are ‘mental’.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term “psychosomatic” in the late 18th century to describe bodymind conditions, while the term “placebo” was first used in the same period, referencing a link between imagination and physical symptom. A few years later, in 1800, the physician John Haygarth published the widely read pamphlet Of the Imagination As a Cause and a Cure of Disorders of the Body.
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- Loners, misfits and the shadow of Southport | Letters
A reader with an autistic son responds to letters about Axel Rudakubana, while Peter Lowe suggests ways of restricting the sale and lethality of knives
I was relieved to read some letters (28 January) about issues which haven’t been headlines in the media, but which might have affected Axel Rudakubana. I also note that he had received a diagnosis of autism.
My son is autistic; he fits Keir Starmer’s “loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom” labelling to a T. He too has been marginalised, bullied and rarely leaves the house. He too lives his life through the internet. He too is vulnerable and influenced by what he reads there. When he was a teenager he too felt he wanted to kill someone. He was fortunate and received treatment.
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- Good for Britain’s neonicotinoid ban, giving bees priority over sugar beet | Letters
Asher Minns writes that farmers have been incentivised to grow a crop that causes obesity, while Prof Richard Evershed says they should turn their skills to growing genuinely nutritious food
I was overjoyed to read that the “emergency” use of bee-killing pesticides has finally been banned (Government overturns Tory measure and bans emergency use of bee-killing pesticide, 23 January). This is great news for pollinators; neonicotinoids’ major use is to protect sugar beet crops from aphids. We don’t need sugar beet. East of England farmers have been incentivised for a century to grow a crop that is refined into a white powder with addictive properties, which causes obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Sugar is not nutritious, but is nevertheless the break crop of choice for our nation’s best arable land. While 100,000 hectares of that land continue to be used for sugar, campaigns about a perceived conflict between food security and renewable energy are a red herring. Food security and energy security are complementary benefits for Britain. Sugar only does damage.
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Asher Minns
Executive director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia