How you can land a £25,000 payout from the NHS if your dentist misses tooth decay or botches surgery. Our must-read guide to claiming the compensation YOU deserve
The 53-year-old first began visiting the clinic, in Surbiton, south-west London, in 2009.
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Powys County Times
an hour ago
- Powys County Times
‘Outdated guidance' sees thousands at risk of prostate cancer ‘overtreatment'
Up to 5,000 men every year could avoid unnecessary treatment for prostate cancer if 'outdated' guidelines reflected latest evidence, a charity has said. Overtreatment of the disease can lead to side effects such as erectile dysfunction or incontinence, according to Prostate Cancer UK. Experts suggest closely monitoring certain patients can be the 'best' option for men whose cancer is unlikely to progress, although out-of-date guidance from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) on how this is implemented has created a 'wild west'. There are around 55,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed in the UK every year. However, in some cases, the cancer is slow-growing and unlikely to ever cause the patient harm. These men benefit from being closely monitored with blood tests and scans, which is known as active surveillance. Nice guidance on active surveillance is designed to advise specialists on how to implement monitoring and which men should be monitored. However, it has not been updated since 2021, according to Prostate Cancer UK. Freedom of information (FOI) request analysis by the charity found around one in four (24%) of hospitals rely on Nice guidance alone to implement active surveillance. It also found 35 hospitals have created their own guidelines, which Prostate Cancer UK warned can lead to inconsistency and confusion among medics. The charity is now repeating its call for Nice to update its guidance on active surveillance, claiming it could help up to 5,000 men a year avoid overtreatment. It also claims the outdated guidance is hindering a screening programme for prostate cancer. Amy Rylance, assistant director of health improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: 'To reduce the harm caused by prostate cancer and build the foundations for a screening programme, we need to both save lives and prevent unnecessary treatment but official guidelines still haven't caught up with the clinical evidence. 'Concerns about overtreatment are a major reason the UK does not routinely screen for prostate cancer, despite it being the most common cancer in England. 'Acting on latest research that shows more men can safely opt for monitoring instead of treatment will reduce overtreatment and the harm it causes men. 'We asked Nice to update their active surveillance guidance two years ago, but our request was rejected. Now we have evidence this is potentially affecting thousands of men. Enough is enough.' The NHS uses a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test to check for prostate conditions including prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate. Routine PSA testing is not currently offered on the NHS, but patients may be offered a PSA test if a GP suspects they have prostate cancer, while men over 50 can request a test from their GP even if they do not have symptoms. However, there have been calls to roll the test out across the health service, although some argue widespread use could identify cases which may not have caused problems or needed treatment. Vincent Gnanapragasam, a professor of urology at the University of Cambridge, said: 'Active surveillance is the best treatment option for men whose cancer is unlikely to progress or cause them problems in their lifetime. 'But Nice's outdated guidelines have created a deeply concerning wild west on how surveillance is implemented by different healthcare teams. 'This inconsistency is resulting in a lack of confidence from patients in surveillance, who may instead opt to have treatment they may not have ever needed, risking harmful side effects. 'Programmes for active surveillance that are standardised and individualised to a man's risk factors have been tested and proven to work.' The UK's National Screening Committee is currently assessing whether a national screening programme for prostate cancer should be rolled out. A Nice spokesperson said: 'We are committed to ensuring our guidelines continue to reflect the best available evidence and give patients the best possible outcomes. 'They are developed by an independent committee, including NHS clinical experts, and are kept under review to ensure they remain current. 'We are updating our prostate cancer guideline, including a review of the recommendations around active surveillance, and will be assessing whether our suspected cancer guideline recommendations around age-related thresholds for PSA tests for prostate cancer for onwards referral from primary care require updating.'
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
What does the data tell us about road traffic accidents in the UK?
Under "tougher" plans to tackle road deaths and injuries in England and Wales, the government has announced measures to make over-70s take compulsory eye tests every three years or lose their driving licence. But are they really needed? Motorists over the age of 70 already self-report their medical fitness to drive every three years, and British roads are safer now than they've ever been. In 2023, the latest year for which the Department for Transport has published data, the casualty rate on British roads fell to 398 per billion vehicle miles. It's the first time that figure has been under 400, and has halved since just 2006. In 1960, the casualty rate was 10 times higher than it is now. The total number of people killed on the UK's roads also reached a record low in 2023, other than the COVID-affected years of 2020 and 2021. There were 1,624 people killed in total, just under half of which were in cars. This figure has plateaued somewhat since 2010, however, after rapid improvements between 2006 and 2010. There was a similar plateau between 1994 and 2006 before the last significant piece of road safety legislation was introduced. The 2006 Road Safety Act introduced higher fines and more points for the most severe speeding offences, as well as vastly expanding the use of speed awareness courses. It was also the first year that people could get points on their licence for using their phone. In the four years that followed, there was a 40% decrease in deaths among road users. In the 13 years since then, it's fallen just 12%. There had been a slight rise in deaths among older drivers for a few years between 2014 and 2019, but that has started to fall again now. There are now fewer deaths among over-70s compared with either the under-30s, people aged 30-49, or those between 50 and 69. In 2019, there were a similar number of deaths among people of each of these age cohorts. Academic studies have previously found that older people are also more likely to develop symptoms of depression, be admitted to care facilities, and even have a higher mortality rate, once they stop driving. The academics found that those links remained even after adjusting for other factors like baseline health and cognitive ability. Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: "It is certainly good for our eye health as we age to have a regular eye test - every two years the NHS advises - but this doesn't automatically mean that a compulsory eye test at age 70 is appropriate. People can develop eye problems at any age so why confine such an approach only to those aged 70 and not to younger drivers too? "From the data we have seen, there is no reason to suppose that eye problems lie behind a significant proportion of accidents. While there may be a case for introducing a regular mandatory eye test for drivers of all ages, it is not clear that this would have a big impact on the numbers of serious accidents involving older drivers." Are younger drivers a danger to themselves? Edmund King, president of the Automobile Association, said that the government's strategy is "much overdue", while pointing to the figures showing that the number of road deaths have plateaued since 2010. He said that making vision checks compulsory for older drivers was a "practical step that can make a real difference", but added that failing to introduce a six-month limit on new drivers transporting passengers of a similar age is "a major oversight". A limit like this has been active in parts of Australia since 2007. Research by road safety charity Brake says that, in the UK, around one in five drivers crash within a year of passing their test. The Department for Transport data also shows that younger people are also significantly more likely to die as passengers compared to people in other age groups. There has also been a suggestion that younger drivers are more likely to die as a result of not wearing seatbelts. More than a third of 17-29-year-olds who die on the roads didn't have their seatbelts on. But the same is true of 30-59 year olds. There is a significant difference between men and women however - 31% of men who died did so without wearing a seatbelt, compared with just 11% of women. That also means that 89% of women who died on the roads did so despite wearing a seatbelt, perhaps adding to evidence that suggests that seatbelts offer better protection to adult men. Drink-driving Since 2014, Scotland has had a lower drink-drive limit than the rest of the UK. The government's new proposals would reduce the drink-drive limit in England and Wales to the same level as in Scotland - 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, instead of the current level of 80mg of alcohol. For an average-sized man, that means they would be over the limit after one pint of beer, instead of after two. In diverging from the other nations in the UK, the new standards in Scotland aligned with most of Europe. It seems to have had some impact. The number of collisions involving drink drivers has fallen by more than 40% in Scotland since it was introduced, compared with 20% in England over the same time period, and 38% in Wales. The improvement is less pronounced when it comes to the most serious drink-driving road accidents, though. They are down just 7% since 2014. Where are the safest, and most dangerous, places to drive? The Isle of Wight has the highest current fatality rate, after accounting for how much driving people do. There were 18 deaths per billion vehicle miles on the island in 2023. Next was Blackpool, with 16. The central London boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Lambeth were the only other local authorities with a rate higher than 10. At the other end of the scale, Stockport (Greater Manchester), Thurrock (Essex) and Nottingham each had fewer than one death per billion vehicle miles. When it comes to accidents that included not just deaths but also serious injuries, London has the worst record. Drivers in Westminster were most likely to end up in a serious collision, but the nine most dangerous local authorities in Great Britain were all London boroughs. Bradford completed the bottom 10. Bath and North East Somerset was the safest area, although three Welsh areas - Bridgend, Neath Port Talbot and Cardiff - joined South Gloucestershire in the top five. Scottish drivers were among the most likely to avoid being in crashes altogether. Eight of the 10 local authorities with the lowest overall collision rate were north of the border, although Rutland in the East Midlands had the lowest overall rate. The top 20 areas with the most collisions per mile driven were all in London. How does driving in the UK compare with other countries? The UK is one of the safest places to drive in Europe. Only Norway and Sweden had a lower rate of road deaths per head of population in 2023 than the UK's 25 deaths per million people. The figures in places like Italy, Greece and Portugal were more than twice as high. There aren't any directly comparable figures for 2023 for the US, but in 2022 their death rate from driving was five times as high as the UK, and 50% higher than the worst performing European country - Bulgaria. The Data and Forensics
North Wales Chronicle
2 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Expectant mothers to bypass GP and go straight to midwife
Traditionally, mothers-to-be made an appointment with their family doctor to tell them the news before being booked in with their midwife. And in recent years, online self-referral has been introduced by local health bodies. But NHS leaders said that only half of expectant mothers were using these services directly, with many going 'unnecessarily' to their GP to access maternity care. Women will now be able to refer themselves to local maternity services 'at the touch of a button' via which will give them faster first appointments, NHS England said. It is hoped that the move could free up tens of thousands of appointments for overstretched GPs. Officials stressed that women can still see a GP if they would like to, adding that some with long-term health conditions will need to discuss changes to their care or treatment plans with a doctor. Just found out you're pregnant? You can now refer yourself to maternity services – no need to see your GP first. It's quick, simple, and gets your care started early. Start your pregnancy journey at UHS here: #MaternityMatters — University Hospital Southampton 💙 (@UHSFT) July 9, 2025 Health officials said that first midwife appointments are 'vital', but only 62% of these happened within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy in 2023/24. There are around 600,000 babies born each year in England and Wales. NHS England said that it is estimated that the new service could lead to 180,000 fewer calls to GPs and up to 30,000 fewer general practice appointments each year. But around a quarter of local health bodies are yet to 'connect' to the national service, it added, with pregnant women in these areas able to self-refer via local trust sites. In 2024, there were 594,677 live births in England and Wales, an increase of 3,605 (0.6%) compared with 2023 (591,072). This is the first increase since 2021, although it is smaller than the 1.8% increase from 2020 to 2021 ➡️ — Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) July 1, 2025 'It's so important that newly pregnant women get the support they need as soon as possible, so this new tool makes it easier than ever to book that all-important first maternity care appointment,' said Kate Brintworth, NHS chief midwife. 'Making this process simpler at the touch of a button is a vital step in empowering women to take control of their pregnancy journey right from the very start and improving access to timely, personalised care.' Dr Claire Fuller, NHS England's national medical director, said: 'GPs are available for any pregnant women who have concerns about their pregnancy they need to discuss, or other health conditions that need monitoring, but in many cases, GP teams don't need to be the first point of contact when someone finds out they're pregnant. 'This quick and easy tool can help ease pressure on practice teams, who won't need to make the referral themselves, and by freeing up that time there will hopefully be a benefit for other patients who are looking to make an appointment with their GP.' Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: 'Early pregnancy should be about joy and excitement – not wrestling with NHS bureaucracy to book a midwife appointment. 'That's why we've overhauled the online referral system. No more endless phone calls or form-filling. Just a simple online service that lets you book those crucial first appointments with a few clicks.' Abbie Aplin, director of maternity improvement and partnerships at the Royal College of Midwives, said: 'Giving women more control and more agency over their care during pregnancy, labour, birth and the postnatal period can only be a good thing. 'Midwives are best placed to support women to make informed choices about their care, so the earlier the better in terms of access. 'We do have to be mindful, though, of those who don't have easy access to smartphones and technology. 'We already see significant inequalities of outcome for women living with social deprivation so the NHS needs to ensure that those gaps aren't widened yet further.' Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, said: 'It's vital that women are able to access the most appropriate person-centred care from the earliest stages and throughout their pregnancy. 'In most cases this will be provided by midwife teams, so this initiative, as long as it is implemented correctly, makes sense. 'It's important that women in early pregnancy still know they can come to their GP directly with any concerns about their pregnancy or health – and for women with existing health conditions, we would advise that they remain in contact with their GP as their pregnancy progresses. 'Anyone that has any issues accessing online referrals can also still be referred to appropriate maternity care through their GP practice.'
