#health-minister

#health-minister

Government WhatsApp groups were never used to make important decisions during Covid and instead relayed information and discussed coffee orders, a former health minister has argued.James Bethell, a hereditary peer whose role involved the awarding of Covid contracts, said he supported the government's legal attempt to limit the amount of information handed to the official inquiry into the pandemic, as otherwise people would be asked to hand over messages that you wouldn't reasonably be happy with.

A leading Conservative MP and former health minister did not properly declare his second job for a health recruitment firm when lobbying Matt Hancock and Michael Gove during the pandemic, the standards watchdog has found.Steve Brine, the chair of the Commons health committee, was found to have breached the rules twice by failing to declare in his approaches to cabinet ministers in early 2021 that he was a paid strategic adviser to Remedium Partners, a recruitment firm offering doctors for free to the NHS.

Matt Hancock's views about the independent experts advising government, detailed in the Lockdown Files, are revealing.They were totally unreliable and wacky (Dame Kate Bingham); a totally offside loudmouth (Sir Jeremy Farrar); and a prize idiot (Prof Jon Deeks); while Prof Sharon Peacock, the amazing scientist who set up Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), was deemed a total outrage, because she didn't warn him months earlier that the Alpha variant was coming (revealing Hancock's misunderstanding of the work of these genome sequencers).

Scotland's finance secretary has "trashed" the SNP's record during the party leadership contest, the Scottish Conservative leader has said.Douglas Ross said Kate Forbes had admitted that trains do not run on time, the police are at breaking point and the NHS has record waiting times.Mr Ross went on to tell Holyrood that a "divided and distracted" SNP was now in a state of civil war.

The UK government considered whether it might have to ask people to exterminate all pet cats during the early days of the Covid pandemic, a former health minister said.It was unclear whether domestic cats could transmit coronavirus, James Bethell said.He told Channel 4 News: What we shouldn't forget is how little we understood about this disease.

Wayne Sullivan, who worked on London's hosting of the Euro 2020 football tournament and the New Year fireworks, died in March from colon and liver cancer.The mayor was among more than 100 mourners at his funeral earlier this month.A celebration of his Mr Sullivan's life he was described as a force for good - will be held at City hall on Tuesday evening.

Matt Hancock was harassed and assualted at a London Tube Station yesterday morning (PA/HoC) (Image: PA/HoC) A 61-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting Matt Hancock at a London Tube station.The alleged attack took place when the former Health Minister was approached yesterday morning at Westminster Underground station and harassed.

At least nine people have died in a stampede at a soccer stadium in El Salvador on Saturday, the authorities said, in a chaotic scene that left other fans injured and at least two hospitalized in critical condition.Videos circulating on Twitter and published by local news sites showed dozens of people clad in white appearing to rush toward an exit at the stadium, with some lying on the ground as more pile on top.

Public prosecutors said suspects with ties to the far-right Reichsburger scene had planned to create "civil war-like conditions" in Germany.They are also accused of plotting to kidnap the health minister.Treason charges have been brought against five people who allegedly planned to overthrow the German government, the federal prosecutor's office said Monday.

Residents in and around the central Ontario community of Minden are calling on the health minister to step in and impose a one-year moratorium on the planned closure of an emergency department.Haliburton Highlands Health Services announced recently that the ER at its Minden location would close as of June 1 and all emergency services would be transferred to its Haliburton site, about 25 kilometres away.

Canada's mental health crisis demands a national summit with representation from all levels of government, Toronto Mayor John Tory said Wednesday, claiming a lack of provincial and federal support is offloading responsibilities onto "ill-equipped" municipalities.In a statement Wednesday morning, Tory called for a summit that would see mayors, ministers, premiers and the prime minister discuss how better to support people living with mental health and addictions challenges.

Conventional MRI machines require special rooms, reinforced floors and have logistical challenges.(Chris Young/The Canadian Press) Ontario is providing about $20 million for the operating costs of 27 new magnetic resonance imaging machines across the province, the health minister said Monday.At a morning news conference in Collingwood, Sylvia Jones said the money will be geared toward small and rural hospitals who do not yet have MRI machines.

Issued on: 28/12/2022 - 16:42 01:15 French Health Minister Francois Braun arrives for a meeting with all the government ministers at the Hotel de Matignon, in Paris on December 2, 2022.Bertrand Guay, AFP The French health system is facing a dangerous week ahead due to the triple epidemic of Covid, the flu and bronchiolitis, a respiratory infection affecting children under 2, French Health Minister Francois Braun said on Wednesday.

People suffering from heart attacks or strokes at home may not be able to get an ambulance at home when staff strike on Wednesday, NHS officials have said.Health secretary Steve Barclay will meet with union officials on Tuesday to insist that both category 1 calls, the most immediate life-threatening emergencies, and category 2 calls  including heart attacks and strokes  are answered.

The Australian government said it wanted to crack down on the use of e-cigarettes in an effort to reduce smoking and stamp out vaping in one of the most sweeping tobacco regulatory moves in the country in years.The proposal, announced on Tuesday, would ban all single-use, disposable vapes; stop the importation of nonprescription vapes; require pharmaceutical-like packaging; reduce nicotine concentrations and amounts; and restrict certain flavors, colors and ingredients.

BERLIN  The day after 3,000 security agents fanned out across Germany to thwart plans to kill the chancellor and overthrow the government, the far-right group behind the plot has unexpectedly emerged as a very real terrorist threat since being supercharged by conspiracy theories during the coronavirus pandemic.

The government has disposed of more than 3bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) it bought during the pandemic, figures have revealed.An estimated 3.14bn items have been shed through a mixture of recycling, energy from waste processes including some incineration donations and sales.Data from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in England showed that up to 28 February, 269,500 pallets of PPE had been removed from its stock.

Almost every school in Scotland will be closed on Tuesday or Wednesday as part of a fresh wave of new year strikes over pay, despite warnings from the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, that her government has no more money to offer teachers, as well as nurses and midwives.Primary schools are closed all day on Tuesday, with secondary schools shutting on Wednesday, after members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), NASUWT and the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA) rejected a 5% pay increase, including rises of up to 6.85% for the lowest-paid, arguing for 10%.

Ireland's hospitals are reeling from record overcrowding amid what the government has called a perfect storm of respiratory infections.The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said on Wednesday no hospital was unaffected by the crisis and called for an extraordinary response from the state.

It was the moment when Alastair Campbell had to acknowledge that The Independent was living up to its title.The conflict in Iraq was looming fast.Filling in for his boss Tony Blair at a lunch at The Independent, Campbell, then No 10 Director of Communications had asked who in the room supported the war.

A senior Tory MP is being investigated by Parliament's Standards Commissioner over improper lobbying of the NHS.Steve Brine, chairman of the Commons Health Committee, is under investigation following claims he lobbied the head of the NHS on behalf of a firm for which he was working as a paid consultant.

Military surgeon Jiang Yanyong is seen in a hotel room in Beijing on Feb. 9, 2004.Jiang Yanyong, a Chinese military doctor who revealed the full extent of the 2003 SARS outbreak and was later placed under house arrest for his political outspokenness, has died, a long-time acquaintance and a Hong Kong newspaper said on March 14, 2023.

The Stormont Assembly has once again failed to elect a Speaker after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) blocked the move.The assembly met on Tuesday in a bid to pass a stalled organ donation law inspired by a six-year-old boy.But the DUP had already said it would not allow a Speaker to be elected as part of its ongoing protest over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

A six-year-old boy who inspired an overhaul of Northern Ireland's organ donation laws has been flown to England for a cardiac procedure.Daithi MacGabhann has been on the heart transplant waiting list since 2018.His family has tirelessly campaigned for the legislation on organ donation to be changed to an opt-out system to help increase the number of donors.

The three candidates vying to replace Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader have set out their plans for independence during the contest's first live TV debate.Humza Yousaf said he wanted to build a "consistent majority" by continuing the party's radical agenda.Kate Forbes said a new approach was needed to win over undecided voters, adding "continuity won't cut it".

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he had a productive meeting with two federal ministers on Ottawa's health-care funding offer, but there is still "a little bit" of work to do.Ford and Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones met for about an hour at the provincial legislature with Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.

Germany will soon drop a mask mandate on long-distance trains and buses, one of the country's last remaining COVID-19 restrictions, the health minister said Friday.The mandate will be dropped on Feb. 2, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach announced in Berlin.Other European countries already have scrapped mask mandates in public transport, and Lauterbach faced increasing pressure to follow suit in recent weeks.

A leading scientist has urged ministers to ban the use of nitrites in food after research highlighted the clear risk of developing cancer from eating processed meat such as bacon and ham too often.The study by scientists from Queen's University Belfast found that mice fed a diet of processed meat containing the chemicals, which are used to cure bacon and give it its distinctive pink colour, developed 75% more cancerous tumours than mice fed nitrite-free pork.

The use of interpreters in Denmark's health services has fallen markedly since a 2018 law passed by the then-Liberal (Venstre) led government introduced charges for people who need interpretation because they do not understand Danish, broadcaster TV2 reports.Under the law, immigrants who have been in Denmark for more than three years must pay for their interpreters when visiting a doctor or hospital.

An 11-year-old girl in Cambodia has died after being infected by a strain of avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, the government says.It was the first known human infection with the H5N1 strain in the country since 2014, the health minister, Mam Bunheng, said in a statement on Thursday.The girl from Prey Veng province, east of the capital, Phnom Penh, was diagnosed with bird flu after falling sick with a high fever and cough on 16 February, the statement said.

There's a growing financial gap in Germany's health insurance system.The country's ageing population means that overall healthcare costs are going up and three years of the Covid pandemic made the problem even worse.According to the latest estimates, statutory health funds like TK and AOK are facing a financial black hole to the tune of around 17 billion this year.

FILE - Health workers treat cholera patients at the Bwaila Hospital in Lilongwe central Malawi on Jan. 11, 2023.Malawi's cholera outbreak has now claimed more than 1,000 lives by Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2023 according to the country's health minister, who warned that some cultural beliefs and hostility towards health workers are slowing down response efforts.

Cholera is an annual problem during Malawi's rainy months from November to March, but the current outbreak is expected to be the worst yet.Malawi has delayed the opening of public schools in its two major cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe, the health minister said on Monday, to try to slow down a surge in cholera deaths.

Health minister says 34 survivors, including five children, were rushed to hospitals and some were in critical condition.At least 18 people have been found dead in Bulgaria in an abandoned truck near the capital Sofia, officials said.The truck was transporting timber and carrying refugees and migrants hidden in a compartment, the country's interior ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and Nato, the head of the alliance said in an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK.If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong, Jens Stoltenberg said.Iran's backing for the Russian military is likely to grow in coming months and Moscow will probably offer Tehran an unprecedented level of military support in return, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

LONDON - Britain's former health minister on Wednesday denied wrongdoing after a newspaper published extracts of private messages he sent in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic.The Daily Telegraph said the exchanges show that then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock ignored scientific advice to test everyone entering nursing homes for COVID-19.

Matt Hancock is fighting claims he rejected advice while health secretary to give coronavirus tests to all residents going into English care homes.The allegations are based on a leaked trove of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages obtained by the Daily Telegraph giving an insight into the way government operated at the height of the Covid-19 crisis.

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Ministers briefly considered ordering all domestic cats in Britain to be killed amid fears they could be spreading Covid, a former health minister has said.Lord Bethell said the concern about pets underlined how little was known about the disease at the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight The Friday papers are dominated by revelations from the public inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing.The Daily Mirror, The Independent and i report MI5 boss Ken McCallum issued an apology after the review into the May 2017 atrocity found it might have been prevented if MI5 had acted more swiftly on a piece of intelligence received in the months before.

The NHS is preparing for further disruption to services as nurses walk out again in their bitter dispute over pay.Health leaders said the service is anticipating an incredibly disrupted week as it faces strikes by nurses, ambulance staff and physiotherapists.Monday saw the largest strike in NHS history as tens of thousands of workers in England staged walkouts, including members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) alongside GMB and Unite paramedics, call handlers and other staff at ambulance trusts.

The government's refusal to introduce menopause legislation leaves women at risk of being driven out of the workforce, MPs have warned.Ministers' decision to reject five key menopause policies constitutes a missed opportunity to stop vast numbers of talented and experienced women from quitting their jobs, the Women and Equalities Committee in the Commons said.

A health minister said there are many things the Government did not get right during the coronavirus pandemic, highlighting the controversial procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the test and trace system.But while acknowledging there were lessons to learn from the Covid-19 crisis, Lord Markham also pointed to successes such as the vaccine rollout and stressed the need for balance.

The government has so far recouped only 18m from potentially fraudulent personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts.Health minister Will Quince, responding to a written parliamentary question from Liberal Democrat MP Daisy Cooper, confirmed that as of 12 December the Department of Health had recovered 18m from PPE contracts deemed high risk.

Medical associations in Germany on Wednesday warned that the country's ongoing drug shortages are likely to persist for months, despite new measures announced by Berlin.Liquid ibuprofen and parecetamol for children are among the drugs experiencing supply chain bottlenecks.COVID-19, influenza, respiratory synctical virus infection (RSV) and other diseases have put a massive burden on Germany's health care system this winter, with children among the most infected.

The public have been warned to avoid risky activities as ambulance drivers stage strike action.Health minister Will Quince urged people to stay safe on Wednesday, which will likely see the NHS hit by major disruption as ambulance workers including paramedics, control room workers and technicians walk out in England and Wales.

People with chest pain should call 999 on Wednesday despite the ambulance strike in England and Wales, the health minister Will Quince has said, but he admitted that people experiencing such pain were waiting an average of 47 minutes.Those with chest pains or a bad fall  category 2 cases  were waiting more than an hour in some areas, Quince admitted.

When Leo Varadkar became Ireland's prime minister in 2017, he was hailed as a fresh face in European politics, only 38 years old, his country's first openly gay leader and the first with South Asian heritage  a personification of a rapidly modernizing state.Now he returns to office on Saturday, in a prearranged power-sharing deal, with that initial optimism dissipated, and with question marks over his judgment and leadership style.

Matthew Weaver Planned strikes next week will be very challenging for the health service, hospital bosses have warned, after they conceded that Thursday's nurses strikes had had a significant impact.The comments from NHS Providers came amid mounting pressure on the government from senior backbenchers and usually supportive newspapers to try to resolve the dispute.

Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure in the dispute over nurses' strikes, with a senior Tory MP telling him to compromise and increase the pay rise on offer while a health minister insisted unions' demands could not be met.As historic strike action across Wales, Northern Ireland and some NHS trusts in England began, the prime minister was urged by the former head of the independent pay review body to reconsider the offer on the table.

A month rail disruption will begin on Tuesday when workers walk out for their first of a wave of 48-hour strikes, as nurses prepare to take unprecedented industrial action.Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) are pressing ahead with two 48-hour strikes at Network Rail  and 14 train companies  from Tuesday and Friday.

Thousands of NHS operations and appointments are being cancelled across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, after last-ditch talks failed to avert the first nursing strike in a generation.Up to 100,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing are expected to walk out on Thursday, with just life and limb cover available and operations only for cancer patients and emergency cases.

Full abortion services are to be formally set up in Northern Ireland, the Government has announced.Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said he had written to the Department of Health in the region to commission the services in line with his statutory obligations.He said he anticipated services becoming available in the coming months.

Planned strikes next week will be very challenging for the health service, hospital bosses have warned, after they conceded that Thursday's nurses strikes had had a significant impact.The comments from NHS Providers came amid mounting pressure on the government from senior backbenchers and usually supportive newspapers to try to resolve the dispute.

At least 19 children have now died across the UK from invasive Strep A disease, new figures show.It comes as the government acknowledged supply issues of some of the drugs used to treat infections caused by the bacteria.Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows 16 children under the age of 18 have died in England since September.

Patients could be taken to hospital by taxi during next week's ambulance strike, a health minister said.Speaking in the Commons today, Will Quince said emergency vehicles would be used for the most urgent 999 calls, such as heart attacks and strokes, as thousands of paramedics strike on 21 and 28 December, but other transport could be used for less-urgent call-outs.

Ministers have been accused of making disingenuous and wrong claims about attempts to avert unprecedented strikes by nurses later this week, as union leaders said the action could be called off right now if serious negotiations resumed.The row prompted one senior Conservative MP to say the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) was 1-0 up, and suggested the health secretary, Steve Barclay, should be inviting them in because there was not an awful lot to lose.

Emergency doctors in Germany say the pediatric intensive care system is close to collapse.With COVID-19 restrictions largely eased, rates of a common but potentially fatal childhood disease have soared.German doctors are warning that a surge in pediatric infections and a shortage of staff mean the country is critically short of intensive care beds for children.

20 minutes ago20 minutes ago Emergency doctors in Germany say the pediatric intensive care system is close to collapse.With COVID-19 restrictions largely eased, rates of a common but potentially fatal childhood disease have soared.German doctors are warning that a surge in pediatric infections and a shortage of staff mean the country is critically short of intensive care beds for children.

The Government must say whether it intends to bring forward new plans to address the cancer treatment backlog in the wake of the pandemic, the new Tory chairman of the health and social care committee has said.Conservative MP Steve Brine expressed doubt that the Government still intended to bring forward a new cancer treatment plan.