Disabled bus pass U-turn in East Sussex
Liv told BBC Radio Sussex: "Some people just can't afford the fares and it can make it really difficult to get into day centres or even work. "As someone on a low wage this was really expensive for me."Buses can be expensive and my bus pass really does help a lot."A statement from ESCC said disabled bus passes could be used any time within county boundaries, but that did not include all-day travel into Brighton and Hove, Kent or West Sussex.It said the changes had come about because of additional Department for Transport funding.
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The Independent
18 minutes ago
- The Independent
Notting Hill face-recognition technology will be used without bias
Metropolitan Police boss Sir Mark Rowley has said live facial recognition (LFR) technology will be used without bias amid concerns about it being deployed at this year's Notting Hill Carnival. In a letter to the commissioner, 11 groups had said the technology is a 'mass surveillance tool that treats all carnival-goers as potential suspects' and has 'no place at one of London's biggest cultural celebrations'. It also said that LFR technology was 'less accurate for women and people of colour' in certain settings. Responding to the concerns, Sir Mark said the technology will help locate any dangerous individuals attending Notting Hill carnival over the August bank holiday weekend. He wrote that when the technology was used at the carnival in 2016 and 2017, it 'did not build public confidence', but has since 'significantly improved' and now performs to a 'much higher standard'. Sir Mark acknowledged concerns about bias in facial recognition technology, adding that the force has selected the algorithm it uses 'with care' and knows how to use it in a non-discriminatory way. It comes after the letter, signed by groups including Liberty and Big Brother Watch, said there is 'no clear legal basis' for Scotland Yard's use of LFR. The letter added: 'Notting Hill Carnival is an event that specifically celebrates the British African Caribbean community, yet the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) is choosing to use a technology with a well-documented history of inaccurate outcomes and racial bias.' Rebecca Vincent, interim director at Big Brother Watch, said she is 'deeply disappointed' that the Met 'has chosen to dig its heels in' after the call to scrap the 'Orwellian' technology. She added: 'We all want criminals off the streets, but turning (the) carnival into a mass police line-up is not the way to do it.' About 7,000 officers and staff will be deployed each day over the weekend. LFR cameras will be used by police at the carnival to search for people who are marked as being wanted on the police national computer. Meanwhile, a UK retail facial recognition system has reported its highest-ever monthly total of suspect alerts, its operators say. In July 2025, Facewatch sent 43,602 alerts to subscriber retail stores – the equivalent of more than 10,000 suspects flagged every week for the first time and a 134.8% increase compared to July 2024 (18,564). Over the 12 months to July 31, Facewatch said it recorded 407,771 alerts in total, with current live data already showing the rising trend continuing into August. Nick Fisher, chief executive of Facewatch, said: 'July's record numbers are a further stark warning that retailers and their employees are facing unprecedented levels of criminal activity, including violent and aggressive behaviour.' A spokeswoman for Big Brother Watch said: 'This technology turns shoppers into walking barcodes and makes us a nation of suspects, with devastating consequences for people's lives when it inevitably makes mistakes.'
Telegraph
18 minutes ago
- Telegraph
‘I was on a cocktail of antidepressants and prescription drugs. It nearly cost me my sanity'
As a junior doctor in her mid-thirties, working an average of 80 hours a week while raising young children, Cathy Wield found herself both burnt out and attempting to deal with suppressed childhood trauma. 'As a child, my parents lived overseas, and I was sent away to boarding school from the age of nine,' recalls Wield, now 65. 'I hated it, and managed to bury the memories of what was a very difficult and traumatic time for me. But when my eldest child won a place at the Royal Ballet School, it meant she would be boarding. I was already exhausted and memories from my childhood started to surface.' Feeling she was in the midst of an emotional crisis, Wield booked a GP appointment. Little did she know that this would precipitate a cascade of dozens of prescription medicines for more than two decades, and as detailed in a memoir, Unshackled Mind, it would ultimately leave her with permanent thyroid and nerve damage. It began initially with a simple antidepressant. But this pill led to suicidal ideations – a known risk in some people who take SSRI medications – and following a spell in hospital, Wield found herself being prescribed dozens of drug cocktails at a time, from antidepressants to antipsychotics and sleeping pills. Her prescription records reveal that over a seven year period, she was prescribed 33 different psychiatric medications. In the throes of side effects which left her barely able to function, Wield was in no position to question the treatment she was getting. 'I was a zombie,' says Wield. 'The side effects were unbelievable. I lost my sexual function because of the drugs and just felt totally numb most of the time, but when I reported these symptoms, I was just told, 'Oh no, that's your depression.' I experienced weight gain, constipation, a condition called postural hypertension which means dizziness when getting out of a chair. I had several head injuries as a result of that. But no doctor at any stage during these years looked and said, 'The problem is the drugs.' It just never entered their heads.' Wield's case is a particularly acute example of the problems of polypharmacy, when people are prescribed more than five different medications at the same time. The issue has been highlighted through studies which have linked polypharmacy to a greater risk of hospitalisation, adverse drug reactions, falls, and reduced quality of life. In one paper, focusing on Liverpool University Hospital Foundation NHS Trust, adverse reactions to prescription medications were a cause of 16.5 per cent of all admissions, with researchers suggesting that the problem could be costing the NHS as much as £2 billion per year. 'We have seen a significant increase in the number of treatments prescribed over the previous two decades,' says Dula Alicehajic-Becic, a consultant NHS pharmacist. 'In England alone, more than one million people take 10 or more medications per day.' So why does this happen? The risks of taking too many pills Wield says that all the years of medication have left her with a permanently damaged thyroid due to treatment with lithium, a drug commonly prescribed for mood disorders, as well as small fibre neuropathy, chronic damage to the small nerve fibres which branch out from the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body. She says that it manifests as a painful, burning sensation in her feet. 'My feet burn if they're warmed,' she says. 'So through the hot summer I have to put them in bowls of cold water, and I have to use ice slippers during the night which I keep in a freezer near the bed.' According to NHS psychiatrist Dr Louise Bundock, who works at the UK's only drug deprescribing clinic, helping stop medications they no longer need, adverse effects relating to mental health medications that mimic psychiatric symptoms are often perceived as the patient's condition worsening, prompting the prescribing of yet more drugs. 'In the worst cases they end up on multiple medications with multiple new psychiatric diagnoses, sometimes being admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and significant effects on their ability to function in all areas of their life, losing jobs, losing relationships and unable to take part in life in the way they did previously,' says Bundock. 'Often the individual themselves believe that they have become very mentally unwell, sometimes for decades.' Polypharmacy has also been identified as a specific risk in older adults over the age of 65. While more than half of people in this age group have at least two medical conditions meaning medicines are necessary, too many pills can increase risk of dizziness, sudden drops in blood pressure when a person stands up, and confusion, which can all lead to falls and fractures. According to Deborah Gompertz, a GP and deputy honorary secretary of the British Geriatrics Society, the balance can be delicate as older people metabolise medications less well, as their kidneys and liver may be less adept at excreting them, meaning they can be more affected by certain drugs. 'We want to optimise the treatment of their long-term conditions, keeping them safe, and helping them to live independently in the community, while still minimising risk of falls, hospitalisation, and potentially death,' she says. How many prescription pills is too many? Researchers and clinicians are keen to emphasise that in many cases, a drug cocktail is both appropriate and necessary. For example, the recommended treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder is a 'triple therapy' of three inhaled medications. However, there are some classes of prescription pills which carry greater risks, such as sedatives and anticholinergic drugs, particularly when people are taking more than five medicines. Anticholinergics can be prescribed for everything from overactive bladder to managing symptoms of Parkinson's disease. 'The higher the anticholinergic burden, the more at risk you are from a fall or confusion,' says Gompertz. For people taking psychiatric medications, Bundock says it is also key to be aware that symptoms such as increased anxiety, worsening low mood, obsessive and compulsive behaviours, suicidal thoughts and even hallucinations can actually be side effects of mental health medications such as antidepressants or sleeping tablets. Why is overprescribing happening? The good news is that overprescribing has been recognised nationally as a problem, but the reasons for it are multi-faceted and complex. Alicehajic-Becic suggests that some clinicians may overestimate the benefits and underestimate the risks of certain medications, while the increasing prevalence of over 65s with multiple health conditions can make it difficult for doctors to strike the balance of trying to manage chronic illnesses while keeping medication load manageable. Gompertz points out that some patients question why a doctor is removing one of their medications or reluctant to prescribe them an additional pill, often assuming that it is due to cost saving rather than concerns of side effects. Alicehajic-Becic says that the issue can also occur because older people with more than one health condition can be seeing multiple consultants. 'Health records are also not uniformly shared, hence information pertinent to a new prescription may not be available in real time,' she says. 'Payments are also given to providers to achieve a certain target, such as cholesterol lowering, which incentivises prescribing.' However when it comes to mental health, Wield feels that doctors need to stop being so quick to medicalise what she describes as 'normal distress'. 'When I look back to that first time when I sought help from the GP, I just needed time to recuperate,' she says. 'I was overwhelmed, overtired and I just needed support, and I wanted to talk to somebody. If I'd had simple talking therapy, I think I would have been fine. Instead, it's cost the NHS a huge amount of money and resources, and personally impacted myself, my family, and my career.' What can you do? Gompertz says that anyone taking multiple medications should be having a structured medicine review at least every six to 12 months, but in some cases, for example medicines like blood thinners, a review should be carried out on a three monthly basis. 'It's something that adult children with an elderly parent can be aware of,' she says. 'If you notice that your mum and dad have got a build-up of their medication at home, it could be an idea to talk to whoever's prescribing those medications for your parents. And if the person themselves feels they're getting side effects or not tolerating them, it's important to have that conversation.' When it comes to psychiatric medications, Bundock advises people to be aware of the possible side effects listed in the accompanying leaflets in the medication box, provided by the drug company. For people who have been on a number of these drugs for a period of time, it is also important not to stop them too abruptly. 'The longer someone has been on a mental health medication, the more important it becomes for it to be stopped slowly,' she says. 'Because there is the possibility of injury to the nervous system from these medications being stopped too fast.' Wield has now been mostly medication-free since 2018. These days she only takes three pills – a hypertension drug, a hayfever tablet and thyroid hormone replacement drug called levothyroxine. But decades of inappropriate polypharmacy have had a lasting impact on her life. 'I'm very fortunate that my husband stuck with me, because it was very, very difficult for our children growing up to have their mother in that state. And with my career, I did manage to return to work and become a specialist in emergency medicine, but I was not able to complete my training and progress to become a consultant. So it's had a huge impact on us financially as well.' Despite her experience, Wield says she's not interested in blaming any individuals for what happened to her, but she is determined to keep raising awareness to try and drive greater systemic change. 'It's driven me to become an activist to try and stop this happening to anybody else,' she says. 'I really do think the prescribing system and doctor's training needs to be addressed so that this doesn't happen to other people.'
Telegraph
18 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The British Right should put Kent before Kyiv
Shortly after the local elections, in which the Conservative Party suffered one of its worst electoral defeats in living memory, I addressed a small group of shell-shocked Tories and warned them that the results indicated their party faced an existential challenge unlike any it had faced in its long history. To my astonishment, the post-speech discussion veered instantly towards the war in Ukraine and the US vice-president's perceived incivility towards President Zelensky. Momentarily losing my composure, I accused them of suffering from 'Ukraine Brain' and argued that polling in the run-up to the elections had made it unambiguously clear that the British people would rather its leaders prioritise 'the defence of Kent over the defence of Kiev [sic]'. There followed a stunned silence that was broken eventually by an aggressively whispered ' Kyiv.' The furious intensity with which so many Tories of a particular age follow every twist and turn of the Russia-Ukraine conflict – even when staring in the face of electoral oblivion – can be hard to understand. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that it is psychological displacement, a way to sidestep the spectre of national decline by chasing the phantom of a geopolitical influence that has long since faded. The incident returned to my mind when reading Charles Moore's bracing column last weekend, in which he warned that National Conservatives like the US vice-president and myself were, as the headline theatrically put it, flirting with 'a perverted patriotism that may yet lead to neo-fascism'. In a Gallic modulation of Godwin's Law, Moore claimed he had detected an echo of the Vichy slogan ' Famille, Travail, Patrie ' ('Family, Work, Country') in the title of a speech I had given – 'Faith, Family, Flag, Freedom' – in which I argued that the New Right should adopt a version of Augustine's ordo amoris as the organising principle for a conservative politics of home and belonging. I did not mention Ukraine or Russia once, but my discussion of the importance of family and nationhood at a major conservative conference was to his mind evidence that I was a Pétainiste and so, by extension, a Poutiniste. He then cited my accurate observation that more people face penalties for free speech in Britain than in Russia as proof of my sympathy for the latter, when my point was to underscore the severity of Britain's free-speech crisis by comparing it to the most notoriously oppressive regime I could think of. (And, in any event, to note that X is worse than Y in respect of Z is not to endorse Y in any respect.) Baffled though I was by his reasoning, I found it hard to disagree with Moore's claim that a tension is indeed emerging across the Western world on the Right, on the neuralgic question of how to weigh national interest against risky and costly involvement in faraway conflicts. He was right too to note that the issue has become a key point of contention among National Conservatives, a global movement of the New Right numbering thousands of Right-wing politicians, academics, and commentators from dozens of countries. Where he went wrong was thinking that there is a single leading figure in the movement who does not unequivocally condemn Russia's unprovoked violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, or salute the extraordinary courage that nation has shown in defending itself against Putin's shameless aggression. Some view support for Ukraine as a moral and strategic stand against authoritarianism and are convinced that appeasement through negotiations with Russia will only embolden further aggression. Others argue that Western support is prolonging an unwinnable war and inflicting far greater suffering and destruction on Ukraine than might have been avoided had peace negotiations been pursued more vigorously early on. The debate highlights the principled realism of the New Right, a realism that tries to balance the claims of justice with the competing priorities of nations affected in different ways and to different degrees by geopolitical conflict. Regrettably, that is an approach that seems to enrage the Old Right, which insists on refracting almost every geopolitical crisis through the prism of the 1930s and 1940s. Steeped in the post-war myths of British exceptionalism – Chamberlain's folly, Churchill's heroism, the grit of the Blitz – they insist on treating Putin as Hitler, Zelensky as Churchill, Ukraine as Poland, and any pursuit of peaceful resolution as the appeasement of a Chamberlain or the collaboration of a Pétain. This mindset – 'World War Two Brain,' in the idiolect of the Right-wing Zoomers who are most mystified by it – motivates hopelessly muddled thinking and ignores the realpolitik of Russia's longstanding paranoia over Nato, the conflict's devastating effects on European energy prices, and the disastrous realignment of Russia with China. It is fuelling a confrontation that is inflicting damage on Ukraine from which it will take decades to recover, it is straining Britain's resources amidst a flurry of domestic challenges unprecedented in living memory, and it is demonising voices calling for peace and restraint. Thankfully, this is a mindset that the US vice-president unequivocally rejects. He understands that dewy-eyed idealism and anachronistic analogies are a recipe for conflict and instability, and that America must pursue peace through strength as it navigates a multipolar world that could not be more different from the geopolitical landscape that vanished nearly a century ago. As for the emerging figures on Britain's New Right, it is they alone who seem to understand that the time has come to rally behind politicians who will put Kent before Kyiv, Glasgow before Gaza, and Bournemouth before Beijing.
