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Hospitals’ ‘long-term poor culture’ called out by CQC

A major acute trust has been warned by the Care Quality Commission about a “long-term history of poor culture” in one of its departments.

Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust has received a warning notice from the Care Quality Commission over its children and young people’s services, following an inspection last November.

Chief executive Matthew Hopkins told the trust board in June that several concerns were raised by the CQC, including over “actions to improve the long-term history of poor culture and ineffective multidisciplinary team working”.

The CQC told HSJ its inspectors also identified concerns about culture, management and oversight of safety risks and a lack of learning from incidents. It said it carried out the inspection after concerns were identified through its ongoing monitoring.

A Section 29A warning notice means the CQC believes significant improvements in the quality of healthcare are required.

Nicki Abbott, the managing director for women and children, said an action plan was being developed in light of the warning notice. She said: “The issues relating to culture are known and were already being addressed”.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025

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Government warned against 10-Year Plan ‘restructure’

One of the central ideas in the 10-Year Health Plan is “not novel” and could be damaging if it imposes a “one size fits all” model, a community health leader has told HSJ.

Steph Lawrence was, until last year chief nurse at Leeds Community Healthcare Trust, which has been celebrated by Labour leaders for its development of integrated care and out-of-hospital working.

Next month, she becomes chief executive of the Queen’s Institute of Community Nursing, representing staff who will need to be central to a “neighbourhood health service” – a proposal due to feature heavily in the government’s 10-Year Health Plan. 

She spoke to HSJ before taking up the post. Asked about neighbourhood health (NH), she warned: “I don’t think this is a new idea. I don’t think this is anything novel. In Leeds, we have had integrated neighbourhood teams since about 2012 or 2013…

“It’s the right thing to do. But [what] worries me is that every neighbourhood will be different, and therefore one size is never going to fit all…

“Sometimes we get this impression that if we put teams together in one place, they’ll naturally get on and work together. That isn’t how it works. It works by developing relationships and making sure you focus on the person, not what the service needs”.

The nurse leader’s comments come amid fears the plan, expected next month, may encourage a takeover of community and other services by acute providers.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025

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‘Extremely disturbing and unethical’: new rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats, unmarried veterans

Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.

The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.

Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.

Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated.

Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.

In making the changes, VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.

Medical experts said the implications of rule changes uncovered by the Guardian could be far-reaching.

They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2025

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NHS call handlers quitting over stress amid ‘relentless exposure to trauma’

NHS call handlers are quitting amid burnout at dealing with 999 calls about suicides, stabbings and shootings and the long delays before ambulances reach patients.

The pressure is so intense that 27% of control room staff in ambulance services across Britain have left their jobs over the last three years, NHS figures show.

Many feel overwhelmed by the demands of their roles, unsupported by their employers and powerless to help patients who are facing life-or-death emergencies, according to a report by Unison, with some resigning within a year of starting the role.

Call handlers get so stressed that they took an average of 33 sick days a year each between 2021/22 and 2024/25, data obtained by the union also showed. That is far higher than the average four days taken off sick by workers in the UK overall.

A report by Unison found that call handlers’ jobs have become increasingly challenging in recent years as the demand for care, which rose during Covid, has remained consistently high since, while ambulance handover delays outside hospitals have worsened.

“These findings paint a bleak picture of the conditions faced by 999 control room staff. TV programmes about ambulance services don’t show things as they really are,” said Christina McAnea, the Unison general secretary.

Unison’s report said: “Relentless exposure to traumatic and increasingly complex incidents, verbal abuse, long shifts and low pay are contributing to stress, burnout and fatigue.

One call handler told Unison: “Some shifts are overwhelmingly traumatic, with 90% of the calls of a distressing nature. One shift, I handled three road traffic accidents and two cardiac arrests.”

“There’s a persistent pressure to remain on the phone, no matter how emotionally drained we are.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 June 2025

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'My baby died after I was ignored' - families call for NHS maternity inquiry

When Tassie Weaver went into labour at full term, she thought she was hours away from holding her first child. But by the time she was giving birth, she knew her son had died.

Doctors had previously told Tassie to call her local maternity unit immediately, she says, as she was considered high risk and needed monitoring, due to high blood pressure and concerns about the baby's growth. But a midwife told her to stay at home.

Three hours later she called again, worried because now she couldn't feel her baby moving. Again, she was told to stay at home, the same midwife saying that this was normal because women can be too distracted by their contractions to feel anything else.

"I was treated as just a kind of hysterical woman in pain who doesn't know what's going on because it's their first pregnancy," the 39-year-old tells us.

When she called a third time, a different midwife told her to come to hospital, but when she arrived it was too late. His heart had stopped beating.

Tassie and her husband John believe Baxter's stillbirth at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI), four years ago, could have been prevented - and a review by the trust identified care issues "likely to have made a difference to the outcome".

The couple are among 47 new families who have contacted the BBC with concerns about inadequate maternity care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS Trust between 2017 and 2024.

As well as the new families, three new whistleblowers - two who still work for the trust - have shared concerns about the standard of care at its two maternity units - at the LGI and St James' University Hospital. This is in addition to the two we spoke to in the initial BBC investigation.

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Source: BBC News, 17 June 2025

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NHS staff unsettled by patients filming care and posting videos on social media

NHS staff have voiced concern about the growing numbers of patients who are filming themselves undergoing medical treatment and uploading it to TikTok and Instagram.

Radiographers, who take X-rays and scans, fear the trend could compromise the privacy of other patients being treated nearby and lead to staff having their work discussed online.

The Society of Radiographers (SoR) has gone public with its unease after a spate of incidents in which patients, or someone with them in the hospital, began filming their care.

On one occasion a radiology department assistant from the south coast was inserting a cannula into a patient who had cancer when their 19-year-old daughter began filming.

“She wanted to record the cannulation because she thought it would be entertaining on social media. But she didn’t ask permission,” the staff member said.

“I spent the weekend afterwards worrying: did I do my job properly? I know I did, but no one’s perfect all the time and this was recorded. I don’t think I slept for the whole weekend.”

They were also concerned that a patient in the next bay was giving consent for a colonoscopy – an invasive diagnostic test – at the same time as the daughter was filming her mother close by. “That could all have been recorded on the film, including names and dates of birth,” they said.

Ashley d’Aquino, a therapeutic radiographer in London, said a colleague had agreed to take photographs for a patient, “but when the patient handed over her phone the member of staff saw that the patient had also been covertly recording her, to publish on her cancer blog.

“As NHS staff we wear name badges, so our names will be visible in any video. It makes people feel very uncomfortable and anxious.”

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Source: The Guardian, 17 June 2025

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Trusts penalised for exaggerating safety standards

Dozens of trusts have been hit with financial penalties after regulators questioned their claims to be compliant with maternity safety standards.

The maternity incentive scheme, run by NHS Resolution, gives trusts “refunds” on their payments to its clinical negligence scheme if they meet 10 safety-related criteria, which trust boards must declare against each year.

The 10 requirements include appropriate staffing, reviewing deaths using a national tool, and board oversight of maternity services.

However, NHS Resolution can investigate if concerns are raised — for example in a Care Quality Commission inspection — and these conflict with the trust’s submission. The payments to trusts can then be withdrawn, or withheld if they have not already been paid.

HSJ analysis of data shared by NHS Resolution found 24 trusts had to make one or more repayments in the first four years of the scheme, which started in 2018 and was relaunched after the pandemic.

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Source: HSJ, 17 June 2025

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Thousands of NHS patients ‘to be denied breakthrough Alzheimer’s drugs’

Breakthrough drugs that slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease will reportedly be refused for use on the NHS this week in a blow to thousands of patients.

The two drugs, Lecanemab and donanemab, slow down the decline in Alzheimer’s patients' ability to carry out daily activities.

The drugs’ success in halting the progression of Alzheimer’s was heralded as a “new era” by campaigners and researchers.

However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) is expected to refuse to recommend them on the NHS, according to The Sunday Times.

The regulator has already issued two decisions, one in October last year and another in March, saying they would not recommend the drugs for use on the NHS. A final decision will be published on Thursday.

The regulator will reportedly turn down both drugs on the grounds of cost-effectiveness, with one insider telling The Sunday Times: “It is the end of the road for these drugs on the NHS”.

Hilary Evans-Newton, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the decision to turn down the drugs would be “deeply disappointing”.

She added: “These treatments are not perfect, and we recognise the challenges they pose around cost, delivery and safety. But scientific progress is incremental, and these drugs represent a vital foundation to build on.”

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Source: The Independent, 15 June 2025

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‘Milestone’ treatment could reshape future leukaemia care

A UK trial has found that a chemotherapy-free approach to treatment may lead to better outcomes for some leukaemia patients, in what scientists are calling a "milestone".

The groundbreaking UK-wide trial could reshape the way the most common form of leukaemia in adults is treated.

Researchers from Leeds assessed whether two targeted cancer drugs could perform better than standard chemotherapy among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).

The Flair trial, which took place at 96 cancer centres across the UK, saw 786 people with previously untreated CLL randomly assigned to receive standard chemotherapy; a single targeted drug, ibrutinib, or two targeted drugs taken together, ibrutinib and venetoclax, with treatment guided by personalised blood tests.

Researchers found that after five years, 94% of patients who received ibrutinib plus venetoclax were alive with no disease progression.

This compares with 79% for those on ibrutinib alone and 58 per cent for those on standard chemotherapy, according to the study, which has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented to the European Haematology Association congress in Milan, Italy.

Dr Talha Munir, consultant haematologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, who led the study, said the Flair trial is a “milestone”.

“We have shown that a chemotherapy-free approach can be not only more effective but also more tolerable for patients,” she said.

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Source: The Independent, 16 June 2025

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Senior health figure accuses NHS of racism over care given to dying mother

A senior figure in the health service has criticised it for deep-seated racism after his mother “got a black service, not an NHS service” before she died.

Victor Adebowale, the chair of the NHS Confederation, claimed his mother Grace’s lung cancer went undiagnosed because black people get “disproportionately poor” health service care.

The NHS’s failure to detect her cancer while she was alive shows that patients experience “two different services”, based on the colour of their skin, Adebowale said.

His mother, Grace Amoke Owuren Adebowale, a former NHS nurse, died in January aged 92. He highlighted her care and death during his speech this week at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference as an example of “persistent racial inequalities in NHS services”.

His remarks prompted fresh concern about the stark differences between the care received by those from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds and white people.

“My mum, who worked for many years as a nurse, died earlier this year at the age of 92. It was difficult. It was not the dignified death that we would have wanted for her,” Adebowale told an audience of NHS bosses.

“It wasn’t the death she deserved. So it makes me clear about the need to address the inequity. I think she got a black service, not an NHS service.”

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Source: The Guardian, 14 June 2025

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Ministers plan to use NHS app to expand clinical trials as part of UK-wide drive

The government is aiming for a significant expansion of clinical trials in the UK, and plans to use the NHS app to encourage millions of people in England to take part in the search for new treatments.

Patients will eventually be automatically matched with studies based on their health data and interests, via the app. The plans envisage alerting them to the trials using smartphone notifications.

NHS trusts that fail to meet targets on trials will also be publicly named, and the best performers will be prioritised for funding, as part of improvements designed to restore Britain’s global reputation for medical research.

The strategy is one of the first to emerge from the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for England. It aims to take advantage of changes simplifying NHS records by quickly identifying people suitable for a trial. It will also include measures to streamline the paperwork required for the studies.

It is hoped the reforms will speed up the trials process and attract more pharmaceutical companies to host them in Britain, as ministers in all departments are ordered to find pro-growth measures.

The 10-year health plan will promise to slash set-up times for trials. While it takes about 100 days to set up a trial in Spain, it now takes 250 days in the NHS. The plan will push for commercial clinical trial set-up times to fall to a maximum of 150 days by March 2026.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 June 2025

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RFK Jr. names new slate of vaccine advisers after purging CDC panel

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has unveiled eight people he has chosen to serve on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel – just two days after taking the unprecedented step of removing all 17 sitting members.

On Wednesday, Kennedy listed the names and short bios of the new advisers who will join the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, at its upcoming meeting in late June.

"All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense," Kennedy said in a post on X, "They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations."

The new members are Dr. Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Cody Meissner, Dr. Michael A. Ross, Dr. James Pagano and Vicky Pebsworth.

"This is a huge win for the medical freedom [m]ovement," David Mansdoerfer, former deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Trump administration, wrote in a post on X, "they did everything by the book to put together this excellent slate of appointees."

Public health advocates are wary.

"Kennedy did not pick people with strong, current expertise in vaccines," says Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law, San Francisco, who studies vaccine policy. "It tells me that Kennedy is setting up a committee that would be skeptical of vaccines, and possibly willing to implement an anti-vaccine agenda."

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Source: NPR, 11 June 2025

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Hospital backlog drops to lowest level in two years

The backlog in routine hospital treatments in England has reached its lowest level for two years.

Data for the end of April showed the waiting list dropped to 7.39 million, down from 7.42 million in March.

But it is nine years since the NHS has met its target of 92% of patients being seen in 18 weeks – currently it is just below 60%.

The government has made meeting the target one of its key missions for this parliament – and on Wednesday announced above-inflation rises for the NHS in the coming years to help achieve it.

Responding to the latest figures, Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting, said: "We are putting the NHS on the road to recovery."

And he added this was "just the start" as the extra investment announced in the spending review, which will see the NHS budget rise by 3% a year in the next three years, combined with reforms that will be announced in the 10-year plan due next month, would help build on what has been achieved.

The drop in the numbers on the waiting list, which covers people waiting for routine treatments like hip and knee operations, came after March saw a rise in numbers – the first time in six months the waiting list had gone up.

Although a little bit of fluctuation from month to month is normally seen, the government said it was clear the numbers waiting were on a downward trend.

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Source: BBC News, 12 June 2025

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Sickle cell patients to have quicker and more accessible treatment in England

People living with sickle cell disease in England are to benefit from quicker and more accessible treatment due to a £9m investment, the government has announced.

Apheresis services, which are a type of treatment that removes harmful components from a patient’s blood, are to improve across England through the funding of more specialist treatment centres. The funding will ensure the wider availability of machines that remove a patient’s sickled red blood cells and replace them with healthy donor cells.

More than 20 NHS trusts currently offer Spectra Optia technology, a treatment more effective than blood transfusions and having been shown to be highly effective in reducing complications such as iron overload.

The investment could save the NHS up to £12.9m every year thanks to a reduction in time spent in hospital for patients and the reduced need for other treatments, according to the government.

Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, said: “People living with rare conditions like sickle cell disease face immense everyday challenges, and can sometimes struggle to get the specialised care they need.

“To make our health service fit for the future, we have to harness the power of new technologies, and these machines provide a shining example of how our government is starting to make huge advancements in digital healthcare.

“Through our plan for change, this government will be the one that removes the barriers to getting the latest and best tech to our NHS frontline, so patients can access the best care available, closer to home.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 June 2025

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‘Virtual hospitals’ to be launched in 10-Year Plan

The upcoming 10-Year Health Plan is set to propose the introduction of “virtual hospitals” based on patients directly contacting consultants on an Uber-style platform, HSJ has been told.

Senior sources have indicated the proposal will involve a major overhaul and expansion of the existing “advice and guidance” model, whereby GPs can seek advice from a consultant before referring a patient to hospital, in the hope of finding an alternative.

Described by one well-placed official as “Uber for consultants”, the new proposal would create a system for GPs and individual patients to directly seek advice from any consultants, including those outside their home area, who make themselves available.

It is being described as “virtual hospitals” or “virtual clinics”.

Speaking at a session hosted by HSJ at NHS ConfedExpo this week, NHS England chair Penny Dash described a similar model which she said was “in the foothills” of development and could reap large benefits.

She said there should be a “much easier way” of GPs getting advice “from anywhere in the country” to help divert a patient from secondary care.

Dr Dash said: “It could be, for example, a model whereby you put in your question, let’s initially say as a GP or a practice nurse, it goes into a central repository as it were, and you have a team of [consultants] who are available for that time who are looking at it and responding to it.

“It doesn’t have to be the [consultant] in your local district general hospital, it could be anyone anywhere in the country.”

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Source: HSJ, 13 June 2025

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Blood cancer patients in England first in world to be offered ‘Trojan horse’ drug

Thousands of patients in England with blood cancer will become the first in the world to be offered a pioneering “Trojan horse” drug that sneaks inside cancer cells and wipes them out.

In guidance published on Friday, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) gave the green light to belantamab mafodotin, which can halt the advance of multiple myeloma for three times as long as standard treatments.

The targeted therapy, which is given as an infusion every three weeks with other cancer drugs, is a special type of antibody drug that targets and attaches to cancer cells.

It has been described as a Trojan horse treatment because it works by being taken into a cancer cell and unleashing a high concentration of a lethal molecule to destroy the cell from inside.

Prof Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, said the drug would be life-changing for patients and their families.

“Myeloma is an aggressive type of blood cancer, but we have seen a steady improvement in the outlook for patients over recent years as we have introduced new targeted therapies,” he said.

“I am delighted that patients in England will be the first to benefit from this new treatment, which has the potential to keep cancer at bay for years longer, giving people the chance of more precious time with friends and family.”

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Source: The Guardian, 13 June 2025

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NIH grant cuts have pulled $2B from medical schools, academic hospitals

National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant terminations have pulled almost $2 billion in funding away from U.S. medical schools and hospitals, including $314.5 million in funding intended to train biomedical and health researchers, according to an analysis from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

The halted funding undercuts medical schools and academic hospitals’ financial sustainability, immediately ended at least 160 active clinical trials for patients being treated for conditions like HIV/AIDS or cancer and threatens “the ability of academic medicine to attract and retain the best and brightest scientists,” the association warned in a Wednesday data brief.

An accompanying release from the AAMC framed the grant terminations alongside a slew of proposed executive and legislative actions it said threaten academic medicine and millions of patients, such as Medicaid provider tax limits and eliminating federal student aid programmes.

“For generations, bipartisan leaders have recognized that America’s strength and future rely on the groundbreaking research performed at our nation’s biomedical research facilities, the complex and highly sophisticated care provided at academic health systems that is the envy of the world, and the ability of our medical schools and teaching hospitals to train the next generation of physicians," AAMC President and CEO David Skorton, M.D., said in a position piece published Wednesday. “For the sake of medical advancement, economic prosperity, and the health of every citizen, we need policymakers to work with us, not against us. The stakes could not be higher—lives truly hang in the balance.”

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 11 June 2025

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Mackey reveals PFI revival plan

NHS England has confirmed plans to introduce a mechanism to allow private finance investment into health service infrastructure within months.

Sir Jim Mackey confirmed today he wanted government to “introduce an off–balance sheet capital investment mechanism”. It is part of a “100 day plan” for his first few months as NHSE CEO, published today.

HSJ understands discussions between NHSE and the Treasury over how this would be used and what form it would take are ongoing. Government is due to publish a new infrastructure strategy in coming weeks; whole 10 Year Health Plan drafts have included proposals for more social investment.

A move to revive off-balance sheet capital would pave the way for private investment to be once again used to build NHS hospitals, after the previous Labour government used private finance initiatives to invest widely in health service buildings in the late 1990s and 2000s.

Under the arrangements, the private sector builds and maintains an asset in exchange for annual payments from the public sector over the course of the contract. Because the private sector bore the up-front construction costs, this did not count as government borrowing.

However the model was criticised heavily over value for money concerns, and was banned by former chancellor Philip Hammond in 2018.

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Source: HSJ, 11 June 2025

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Virtual wards saved trust £1.3m a year

Virtual ward beds are £450 cheaper per day than traditional hospital ones, researchers have found in a landmark study.

It found around £1.3m was saved per year by the “hospital at home” service at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals Trust.

Expanding virtual wards, where some acute services are delivered in patients’ homes, have been a big feature of government and NHS England health policy since covid-19.

Yet some experts question the cost-effectiveness of the policy, and early studies have yielded mixed results.

Niall Keenan, one of the researchers on the study from West Herts, and chair of the East of England clinical advisory group for virtual wards, told HSJ the new research is believed to be the largest to date in England.

It comes after NHS leaders told HSJ earlier this year that virtual wards were being targeted for cuts this year in a bid to balance the books.

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Source: HSJ, 12 June 2025

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CQC warns trust over maternity staffing

The trust with the highest perinatal mortality rates in the country has been told it must improve its midwifery staffing.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust is now reporting weekly to the Care Quality Commission about staffing on its maternity wards after being served a section 29A warning notice, it has emerged.

It followed inspections of its maternity and neonatal services in December and January. The trust, one of the largest in England, has already moved some neonatal care out of one of its hospitals, after issues were raised by the inspection.

It was also told to provide details to the CQC about how its board is informed about unmitigated risks and how its quality review meetings are assured over midwifery staffing, according to information seen by HSJ.

The trust also promised to provide assurance shifts would be filled by qualified and competent staff and that its rota would be compliant with numbers dictated by the Birthrate Plus safer staffing tool. The requirements remain in force until the CQC decides they are no longer needed.

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Source: HSJ, 11 June 2025

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Millions in compensation could be owed to women with mesh implants

Mesh implants returned to the national spotlight as Sling the Mesh campaigners appeared on Good Morning Britain to highlight the devastating impact of surgical mesh procedures—and the urgent need for compensation and systemic reform.

Campaign founder Kath Sansom was joined by Sharron Mahoney – who suffered severe autoimmune complications and chronic pain following rectopexy mesh surgery. Remarkably, Sharron’s symptoms began to clear within days of mesh removal -powerfully underscoring the direct link between these devices and the serious harm they can cause.

Sharron’s story highlights the critical work of researchers such as Nicholas Farr from Sheffield University who recently published this study showing the plastic particles of surgical mesh can trigger autoimmune diseases – even after removal.

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Menstrual tracking app users cautioned about risks

Women who tracked their menstrual cycle using smartphone apps have been warned about the privacy and safety risks of doing so.

A report from the University of Cambridge's Minderoo Centre said the apps were a "gold mine" for consumer profiling and collecting information.

Academics cautioned that in the wrong hands, the data could result in health insurance "discrimination" and risks to job prospects.

The apps collect information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use.

Academics at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, an independent team of researchers at the university, said this data could give insights into people's health and their reproductive choices.

The report added that many women used the apps when they were trying to get pregnant.

Researchers said data on who is pregnant, and who wants to be, was some of the "most sought-after information in digital advertising" as it led to a shift in shopping patterns.

"Cycle tracking apps (CTA) are a lucrative business because they provide the companies behind the apps with access to extremely valuable and fine-grained user data," they said.

"CTA data is not only commercially valuable and shared with an inextricable net of third parties (thereby making intimate user information exploitable for targeted advertising), but it also poses severe security risks for users."

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Source: BBC News, 11 June 2025

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Cervical screening invites to change in England

Invitations for cervical screening will be sent out every five years instead of every three for women aged 25-49 in England, if they have a negative test.

Research shows they are at very low risk of cervical cancer and can safely wait longer to be screened again, NHS England has said.

The roll out of a vaccine to protect against HPV - the virus which causes nearly all cervical cancers - has reduced cases by around a quarter since the early 1990s.

Charities said the change was good news for those at low risk because they no longer needed to go for screening as often.

Scotland and Wales have already introduced this change, which will start in England from 1 July.

Cancer Research UK urged women and people with a cervix not to wait for a screening invitation if they noticed any unusual changes.

They are encouraged to go for regular cervical screening between the ages of 25 and 64, external.

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Source: BBC News, 10 June 2025

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MPs set to vote on decriminalising abortion in England and Wales

Women would no longer be prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy in England and Wales under a proposed shake-up of abortion laws.

MPs are set to get a free vote next week - meaning they will not be told how to vote by their party - on a change to the law.

It comes amid concern more women are being investigated by police on suspicion of illegally ending a pregnancy.

Abortion is illegal in England and Wales, most often prosecuted under a piece of Victorian legislation, the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861. But it is allowed up to 24 weeks and in certain other circumstances under the terms of the 1967 Abortion Act.

This requires two doctors to sign it off and even before 24 weeks can require a woman to testify that her mental or physical health is at risk.

An amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, tabled by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, aims to decriminalise abortion at any stage by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy, ending the threat of investigation or imprisonment.

The framework by which abortion is accessed would remain the same.

But abortions would only need to be signed off by two doctors - as the law currently demands - if the procedure takes place in a hospital or other healthcare setting.

Time limits would also still apply in healthcare settings.

"The police cannot be trusted with abortion law – nor can the CPS or the wider criminal justice system," Antoniazzi said.

"My amendment to the crime and policing bill will give us the urgent change we need to protect women."

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Source: BBC News, 20 June 2025

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