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Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Health
- Telegraph
Robert Winston: ‘Striking doctors have lost the plot and the trust of the nation'
Robert Winston's impeccable bedside manner does not lend itself to expressions of anger, but there is no mistaking his disgust as he decries the 'highly immoral' doctors' strike beginning on Friday. After six decades in medicine, Prof Lord Winston is better qualified than almost anyone in the country to assess the current state of the NHS and the impact the strike will have on it and its patients. There is no doubt in his mind that people will die as a result of the five-day walkout – for which he cannot forgive his colleagues – but he foresees a much longer-term malaise taking root in the NHS because of the industrial action. 'I think it's very, very obvious that my colleagues, the resident doctors, have lost the plot, and more importantly probably lost the trust of the nation,' he says, 'and I think it's going to be very difficult to get that back.' A professor of science and society at Imperial College London, Lord Winston is a fertility expert who pioneered key advancements in IVF treatment. However, it was the groundbreaking BBC documentary series he presented – including Your Life in Their Hands, The Human Body and Child of Our Time – that made him a household name. He is also a Labour peer. Celebrated for his calm, authoritative persona, which remains steady even during a clinical dissection of his younger colleagues' behaviour, his message becomes all the more powerful. Earlier this month, he resigned his membership of the British Medical Association (BMA) after 61 years, mainly due to his disgust at the proposed strikes, but also because of its failure to tackle rising anti-Semitism among NHS doctors, of which more follows. The strike is an attempt by the BMA to force the Government into giving residents (previously known as junior doctors) a pay rise of 29 per cent, on top of increases of 22 per cent and 5.4 per cent over the past three years. Lord Winston does not mince his words when I ask him how much danger patients will be in because of the strike. 'It's very likely if this lasts at all long, somebody will die,' he says. 'Inevitably they will. You can't avoid it. 'Several people clearly are going to have much worse chances of getting their cancers treated, and some people will be less well or in pain. You can't simply allow disruption of services on this scale, and not accept the fact that more accidents will happen.' Trust in the NHS will be eroded, and Lord Winston believes that trust is not only important in determining the level of public support for the strikes but also has a direct effect on patients' health. 'That is an important part of treatment because if people trust you and they feel they're getting good medicine, they tend to get better because of what we call a placebo effect, which actually is not insignificant,' he says. 'It's been shown again and again that that attitude to your medicine plays a major role in how you heal. If you're reasonably happy and reasonably sure of your treatment, what studies have shown is that your symptoms get less and your treatment tends to be quicker.' The doctors' union, Lord Winston says, 'does not represent a very large proportion of the medical profession' anymore, and is 'acting highly politically' under the chairmanship of Dr Thomas Dolphin, a militant Corbynista who tried, and failed, to be selected as a Labour Party candidate at the last election. Lord Winston is not convinced that the strikes have as much support among resident doctors as it might seem; he believes many have been 'pressurised' into backing strike action by a union attempting to 'blackmail' the Government. 'At this time when people are struggling in all walks of life, in all professions, particularly with the difficult financial situations we have, I think that's pretty dishonourable. But more importantly, I don't think doctors should strike.' Lord Winston is now 85 but still has a full head of dark hair and a jet-black moustache, and retains all the sharpness and vigour of a man half his age. 'It's probably all genes,' he chuckles when I ask how he stays looking so young. 'I don't live particularly well. I drink too much alcohol.' He is speaking from the kitchen of his home in north-west London, where he lives alone following the sudden death of his wife Lira four years ago, after 48 years of marriage. Lord Winston obtained his medical degree in 1964 and made a career as an expert in fertility. As professor of fertility studies at Hammersmith, he led the IVF team that pioneered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to identify defects in human embryos. He remains professor of science and society at Imperial College London and its emeritus professor of fertility studies, and is a founding member of the UK-Israel Science Council. He is old enough to remember the formation of the NHS, has worked within it for most of its history, and is not afraid to say that it needs to change to survive. He points out that when the NHS was founded in 1948, the per-patient cost each year was around 10s 6d, which translates to about £100 in 2025, adjusted for inflation. Today's per-patient cost is around £3,000, meaning it is time to discuss a new way of funding the NHS, Lord Winston says. He does not offer a ready-made alternative funding model, but says that if the NHS were a factory producing goods, the manager would know the cost price of everything it did, whereas 'we don't know any of that in the NHS'. The biggest cost within the NHS, of course, is wages, and student doctors entering the profession today need to be realistic about what to expect, both in terms of pay and conditions when they first begin working, he suggests. 'When I talk to medical students, which I do very frequently, I make it very clear that the NHS is not an easy place to work in,' he says. 'When I first got on the wards, I made a terrible mistake on the first day – almost killed a patient by injecting something. 'I say, look, this is difficult, but in the long term it's still worth doing.' Successive governments are partly to blame for the current dissatisfaction among some NHS staff, he says, but from a financial point of view, medicine remains a lucrative profession for doctors who rise through the ranks. 'I didn't get my first house until 10 years after I qualified. It is a problem, but in the long term it's a pretty secure job and you can do a lot of things with it. And you can earn in all sorts of ways if you want to.' Despite being a Labour peer with expertise in health, he says he has never met Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, but believes 'he is absolutely right to be looking at all sorts of options' to end the doctors' dispute. Streeting thinks there is a deal to be done on the cost of exams, equipment and training. Lord Winston says he does not understand why the doctors refuse to consider the offers being made, unless the BMA is purely motivated by a desire to challenge the Government – 'and I think that's a dangerous thing to do.' Another way in which the BMA appears to have become politicised, he says, is over the issue of anti-Semitism in the workplace. Lord Winston, who was brought up as an Orthodox Jew, says this was part of the reason he quit the BMA. Some Jewish doctors have reported feeling 'intimidated and unsafe' at the BMA's annual conference because one in 10 motions relate to Israel, Palestine or Zionism. The union has also been accused of allowing members to cross the line from expressing political opinions into singling out Jewish colleagues. Is that fair criticism? 'I've had a number of letters from colleagues who have raised that issue with me,' he says. 'There are lots of areas where the BMA is failing. Anti-Semitism certainly is something that I know a lot of Jews have been worried about, and sometimes I've seen pretty horrific things that are still going on and not properly dealt with.' He says one of the problems he keeps hearing complaints about is NHS workers conflating being Jewish with being Israeli, meaning 'you're responsible for the Israeli government and the appalling things which are happening in the Middle East'. 'I've seen many people who've been very unpleasantly criticised for something which is no fault of theirs simply because they're Jewish.' He has come to the conclusion that the BMA, which has not even bothered responding to his attempts to engage with it, is 'not fit for purpose'. Last year, Dr Dolphin put forward a motion, passed without debate, to reject the independent Cass review into children's transgender services, which called on the NHS to stop prescribing puberty blockers to minors. Lord Winston, who believes people cannot change their biological sex through surgery or any other means, was an outspoken supporter of the gender-critical academic Kathleen Stock, who was sacked by the University of Sussex in 2021. 'The BMA haven't done very well on that either,' Lord Winston says. 'They've ended up with a very muddled appraisal of transgender, which doesn't make any kind of scientific sense. And of course, transgender is a massive problem because people who are transgender are now really quite at risk. 'How we deal with this, of course, has to be a scientific solution to some extent until we understand why people want to be transgender or end up being transgender […] I know from my own clinic I saw quite a few patients who had changed their sex, or had transgender procedures, who then regretted what had happened later on. 'One of the things we do need to have is real sensitivity towards people who are in this situation, and towards the families too, who often have difficult relationships with their own children as a consequence. That needs to be dealt with. I don't think the BMA has made a great attempt at doing that. 'It would be very helpful if we had a proper discussion which is based more on the science and the medicine than the attitudes.' Another emotive subject facing politicians at the moment is assisted dying. Kim Leadbeater MP's bill to legalise it is currently on its way through the House of Lords, and Lord Winston will be speaking when it is debated later this year. He says that, having initially been against the bill, he is now leaning towards supporting it. 'I'm massively coming around to the fact that we're behind the curve in this country because […] there are many, many countries now that have some form of legislation. 'And it seems to me that there are certain situations where people really have a right to take some kind of elixir that, in fact, allows them to be finally free of pain. 'Of course, I want to see more palliative care, but one of the problems is that many of those most opposed have strong religious views. That's a dangerous position to take if you're a parliamentarian, because you're legislating for the whole community, not just people of your own faith.' For that reason, he abstained from the last vote on the bill in the Lords, but says he has tried to imagine what he would want if he were in the position of terminally ill patients seeking control over their own death. He draws on personal experience, recalling his time working for a GP to earn extra money during holidays from his hospital residency. The GP told him that a terminally ill lung cancer patient must not be admitted to hospital under any circumstances 'because he wants to stay in his own surroundings'. Lord Winston was told to visit the man every day, and in the end 'he died very peacefully' in his own home. He also brings up the case of Herbie Mowes, the German antiques dealer who made history by allowing the BBC to film his death from cancer for Lord Winston's documentary series The Human Body in 1998. The BBC, he recalls, 'wanted to abandon the programme' after the press derided it as a 'snuff video,' but after it was broadcast, it helped to change attitudes towards death, he says. Herbie 'was content with his garden, his little house, and his friends,' and his GP visited twice a week to adjust his medication. A large crew worked on the documentary, he says, and 'I think they often changed their view about dying afterwards'. It would be remiss not to ask the country's foremost expert on fertility for his views on the latest developments in IVF and genetics. When I ask him for his views on this month's controversy over 'three-parent babies'– in which the nucleus of a fertilised egg is transferred into a donor egg to avoid a type of genetic disease – he points out that he fought for the procedure to be legalised during a Lords debate a decade ago. He dismisses criticism of the procedure, which has been pioneered by Newcastle University, saying that it is only really the 'battery pack' in human cells that is being altered. But it does raise a much wider question: would it be right for science to eradicate disability altogether if it were possible? 'No,' he says, 'but we couldn't, because when it comes to genetic disease, many genetic diseases occur between generations. 'So we're going to continue to get genetic disease, even with screening, even with the ability to change DNA in embryos.' The future of medicine, he says, 'is not really in our genes, it's in how we improve people's environment'. Better education and higher living standards, he believes, will have a greater impact on world health than the DNA inside embryos. As for his own living standards, he mentions that he could have chosen to settle in America, where he was paid 'a huge salary' with much better funding for his research during a spell there in the early 1980s, but he cannot live without London's art galleries and its classical music and opera scene. His other passion in life, aside from his three grown-up children and eight grandchildren, is his wine collection, which he started building up as an undergraduate, with a particular love of burgundies – 'unpredictable and often unrepeatable,' in his words. 'I recently drank one from 1919,' he says, 'which I bought for a couple of quid a long time ago and which would now be valuable at auction. 'But I'm not interested in trying to sell wine. What I like is to sit around and drink it with friends.' Likewise, Winston's medical career has never been about the money – and he seems to wish that today's resident doctors would adopt the broader view that has guided him throughout his career. He believes that 'doctors have a huge moral obligation'. 'They're sitting in front of somebody they don't know very well,' he says, 'but who is actually opening themselves up in a very private way, in a way they don't really want to. 'They're often in pain. They're often very worried. They often think they have something much worse than they really do. They're about to undergo all sorts of humiliating tests and investigations. They're in hospital, away from their family. They're worried about money, they're worried about their family. 'A doctor has a unique privilege. Nobody else in the world has that privilege. And I want to say that to them because, if you abuse that privilege, you run great risks with the relationship you then have with the patient afterwards.'
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Closing classroom windows does not cut air pollution, study finds
Keeping the classroom window closed is not the answer to reduce the amount of pollution coming into schools, a recent study has found. A project called SAMHE (Schools' Air quality Monitoring for Health and Education) operated air pollution monitors in nearly 500 classrooms for an academic year and found that days with high outdoor pollution led to higher pollution inside the classrooms. The Imperial College London researchers found that 6% of school days had outdoor particle pollution above the World Health Organization's daily guidelines and these days contributed 17% of the annual classroom pollution. A project called SAMHE, led by at Imperial College London, operated air pollution monitors in nearly 500 classrooms for an academic year, and found that days with high outdoor pollution led to higher pollution inside the SAMHE classrooms. Six percent of school days had outdoor particle pollution above the World Health Organisation's daily guidelines, but these days contributed 17 percent of the annual classroom pollution. Dr Alice Handy of the SAMHE team said: 'Reducing ventilation will not stop outdoor PM2.5 entering classrooms. We saw high levels of particle pollution in classrooms during the weekends around fireworks night when schools and classrooms were closed. Ventilation is also really important to lower carbon dioxide in classrooms, which is linked to attention and can reduce the risk of spreading infections.' The good news is that school classrooms did provide a degree of protection against air pollution with average particle pollution measuring 30% less than outdoor air. Handy added: 'Relatively little of the particle pollution in classrooms seems to be generated there, most comes in from outdoor air.' Over the school year, about 80% of the classroom pollution came from outside. At home, children can breathe in particle pollution from sources that include cooking, personal care products, wood burners and cigarettes. Pollution in schools can also be lower than on the journey to and from school. Research in London has shown that children who walk along busy roads or travel by car to school have the greatest exposure to traffic pollution. Handy said: 'Our results show how important it is to continue with initiatives such as no-idling zones, school streets, and efforts to burn fewer fossil fuels, to clean up the air both inside and outside schools.' The team tested out air filters and sensors in an additional 300 classrooms and found they reduced particle pollution by 29% compared with nearby schools in the main part of the SAMHE study. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Dr Samuel Wood of the research team said: 'We saw significant reductions, but outdoor air quality was still the leading driver of classroom particle pollution, even with filters installed. Air filters may be able to mitigate against some of the effects of poor outdoor air quality, but they are unlikely to remove them altogether.'
The Independent
5 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Why scientists fear climate change could help Covid to thrive
From Indigenous communities in the Amazon to the frozen continent of Antarctica, the Covid-19 virus has spread at an unprecedented pace to some of the world's most remote areas after it was first reported in Wuhan in December 2019. To date, more than 778 million cases across 240 countries have been reported by the World Health Organisation, with new variants continuing to emerge. While globalisation and international transport are well-known drivers of the rapid spread of the virus, emerging research suggests climate change can influence Covid-19 transmission, mutation, and human susceptibility to infection. Researchers believe that increased exposure to animals, that can carry viruses and transmit them to humans, may lead to a rise in cases. 'As we disturb natural ecosystems and bring wildlife, especially bats in the case of Covid, into closer contact with other animals and people, the risk of diseases jumping between species increases,' Dr Efstathios Giotis, Infectious Disease Research Fellow at Imperial College London, told The Independent. 'In fact, there is growing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 may have first jumped from bats to an intermediate animal, such as raccoon dogs, before eventually infecting humans.' After initial debate, there is now broad scientific consensus that bats were the so-called reservoir, where Covid pathogens existed and multiplied. Changing weather patterns and ecosystems have increased human contact with wildlife and created conditions conducive to viral survival. Extreme weather events further exacerbate exposure, susceptibility, and strain emergency responses. As noted by experts in The Lancet Planetary Health, the emergence of Covid-19 coincided with one of the hottest years on record, marked by notable climatic extremes. Record-breaking heat, rising sea levels, melting ice, and extreme weather reinforced evidence that the Earth is undergoing dangerous change for key climate indicators, according to the latest State of the Global Climate report. Last year was the first in which the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, with extreme weather events leading to the highest number of new displacements since 2008, the report said. Transmission Covid-19 is transmitted through tiny airborne droplets when an infected person breathes, speaks, sneezes or coughs. Rising temperatures and relative humidity help infectious particles survive longer and remain suspended in the air, influencing transmission, scientists explained in a paper published in Frontiers in Medicine. Increased rainfall, flooding, and climate-driven displacement forces people into close contact, boosting infection chances and contributing to higher prevalence in areas with high population density. Displacement also makes hygiene practices harder to maintain, the UNHCR emphasised. More widely, deforestation increases the risk of transmission for zoonotic diseases, passed from animal to human, and potentially new coronaviruses. 'The big issue of novel zoonotic disease is how we have eroded ecosystems and their natural regulation of disease transmission,' Dr Mark Everard, Ecosystem Services Professor at the University of the West of England told The Independent. Habitat loss and expanding roads into less degraded areas reduce the buffer natural habitats create from humans, Dr Everard explained. Mutation As habitat and buffer loss increases the chance of coronavirus jumping or 'spilling' from animals to humans, it increases the likelihood of mutations occurring. 'Climate doesn't directly change how fast pathogens mutate, but it can create more chances for mutations to happen,' Dr Efstathios Giotis told The Independent. 'For example, when climate events occur such as unusually warm temperatures or habitat changes (such as a bushfire), they can push animals into closer contact with other species or humans. 'In this way viruses like influenza or coronaviruses have more opportunities to jump or spillover between species. 'Each spillover event increases the chances for new mutations to develop.' Susceptibility Climate factors can also make people more susceptible to Covid-19. Dust from desertification damages the respiratory tract, giving the virus deeper access and increasing disease severity, research in Frontiers in Medicine explained. In the case of wildfires, tiny particulate matter, known as PM2.5, in smoke irritate and inflame the lungs, increasing the risk of infection. Measuring just 2.5 micrometers in diameter, PM2.5 enters the blood stream and lodges deep in organs. This risk increases for children, with small lungs, or people with pre-existing organ conditions, research in the The Lancet Planetary explained. 'Organisms stressed by heat, water, etc. have lower resistance to infections,' added Dr Everard, referring to plants, animals or humans who either carry infections or are infected. Emergency responses Climate hazards can interfere in the delivery of public services and staff mobilisation, research in The Lancet added. For example, power disruptions can affect health facilities and wildfires divert emergency staff attention. Contract tracing also becomes harder as, for example, people move and intermingle in response to flooding. While research into the links between climate and Covid-19 is still ongoing and some studies are inconclusive, the experts warned: 'Multiple risks can all affect health systems, leading to negative outcomes for people and locations with low capacities to respond to Covid-19.'
Gulf Today
6 days ago
- Climate
- Gulf Today
Heat wave in Europe kills 1,500 people in 10 days
Europe is reeling under an unprecedented heatwave, and it has touched extremely high temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius and 46 degrees Celsius in late June and early July. And it has caused an alarming death toll of 1,500 people, many of them aged above 65. Europe is not used to these high summer temperatures and it has not experienced this kind of extreme heat at the very beginning of summer. Summer peaked in Europe in late July and August. Meteorologists are explaining the extreme heat event to the formation of a heat dome over places experiencing peak temperatures in Spain and Portugal because of high pressure. They say the high pressure captures heat near the surface and it does not allow convex clouds to form and lead to rainfall. Europe has been bearing extreme summer temperatures for many years now, though the years of peak temperatures have been in 2003, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023. According to researchers at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, of the 2,300 heat-related deaths, 1,500 were due to climate change. Says Imperial College researcher Ben Clarke, 'Climate change has made it significantly hotter than it would have been, which in turn makes it a lot more dangerous.' The danger aspect of the heatwave is reflected in the death toll in many cities in 12 countries. A study by the two London institutions showed that 317 deaths in Milan were due to climate change, and 182 were not related to climate change, and the numbers for other cities show a similar pattern. In Paris, 235 deaths were due to climate change and 138 due to other reasons, in Barcelona 286 deaths were due to climate change compared to 54 for other reasons. In Rome, 162 deaths were due to climate change, and 118 for other reasons, and in London it is 171 deaths due to climate change and 92 due to other reasons. These deaths occurred in a short period of 10 days ending on July 2. The impact of high summer temperatures has a drastic impact in Europe because the temperate climate in the European countries had never experienced these heat extremities. People are not used to the heat as much as they are to the cold waves. It is a fact that the Europeans have been at the forefront of the climate change battle, they have raised the alarm much before the others, and they have been trying to adopt green technologies and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. But it becomes clear that Europe cannot protect itself from the consequences of climate by taking care of itself. Climate change is a global phenomenon. Europeans cannot hope to check the rise in temperatures and reduce CO2 emissions on their own. All other countries have to be part of the process. European climate negotiators have been playing tough in climate talks, especially with regard to giving financial assistance to developing and least developed countries so that they can buy the green technologies needed to cope with the challenge of climate change. The developed countries of Europe are refusing to share the financial burden of adopting the technologies needed to curb CO2 emissions and control pollution and rising temperatures. The unfortunate death toll of people in Europe unable to bear the extreme heat is a tragic reminder to the political leaders that they have to share the global burden of fighting climate change. Europe cannot hope to save itself from the disasters of climate change by trying to protect itself alone. It is very clear that Europe cannot remain immune to the depredations of climate change.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Universities awarded funding to help recruit ‘world's top researchers' to UK
A group of leading universities and research organisations has been selected to deliver a £54 million Government fund to recruit world-leading researchers to the UK. The Global Talent Fund, administered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), aims to attract up to 80 researchers in high-priority sectors such as life sciences and digital technologies. Twelve universities and research institutions across the UK have secured an equal share of the fund to help bring some of the world's foremost researchers and their teams to the UK. The institutions selected are: University of Bath; Queen's University Belfast; University of Birmingham; University of Cambridge; Cardiff University; Imperial College London; University of Oxford; University of Southampton; University of Strathclyde; University of Warwick; John Innes Centre and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. The five-year Government fund, which starts in 2025/26, will cover all eligible costs with no requirement for match funding from research organisations. Visa and relocation costs for researchers and their family members will be covered by the fund. Science minister Lord Vallance said: 'Genius is not bound by geography. But the UK is one of the few places blessed with the infrastructure, skills base, world-class institutions and international ties needed to incubate brilliant ideas, and turn them into new medicines that save lives, new products that make our lives easier, and even entirely new jobs and industries. 'Bringing these innovations to life, here in Britain, will be critical to delivering this Government's Plan For Change. 'My message to the bold and the brave who are advancing new ideas, wherever they are, is: our doors are open to you. 'We want to work with you, support you, and give you a home where you can make your ideas a reality we all benefit from.' Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: 'The UK is home to some of the world's best universities which are vital for attracting international top talent. 'Supported by our new Global Talent Taskforce, the Global Talent Fund will cement our position as a leading choice for the world's top researchers to make their home here, supercharging growth and delivering on our Plan For Change.'
