Victoria Macdonald , Health and Social Care Editor

The crisis in Britain’s healthcare system has put huge pressure on the NHS, and the winter of discontent in the UK is set to continue. 

The Prime Minister has acknowledged that seeing ambulances queuing outside hospitals made people ‘understandably anxious’ and one of those five pledges he made earlier today was to tackle NHS waiting lists. 

The mounting pressures on the NHS have become an “unprecedented challenge”, Downing Street has admitted.

The pressure on the NHS is intolerable and unsustainable according to medics amid warnings that as many as 500 people could be dying weekly because of delays in emergency care. 

Now, mental health has become a major concern in this country, exacerbated by the pandemic but the first major reform of the 1983 Mental Health Act is only now going through parliament.

Pregabalin is a prescription drug used to treat epilepsy, chronic pain and anxiety. It’s regarded by the authorities as an effective treatment, but it can also cause dependency, addiction, and puts people at higher risk of overdosing on other substances – the reasons why it became more tightly regulated in 2019. Yet figures obtained by…

How concerned should we be about the rise in cases of Strep A?

Scientists have welcomed clinical trials of a new drug which could help to slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease. The trials show that the drug – called lecanemab – had some impact in patients with early stages of the disease, which affects some 30 million people around the world. Experts say although it’s…

Up to 100,000 nursing staff across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will take part in their biggest ever nationwide strikes over two days next month – as the Royal College of Nursing gave details of where the industrial action will take place.

The country has seen its highest Covid figures since the start of the pandemic.

There is still too little known about long Covid and particularly how it affects children.

So how have today’s announcements been received?

Waiting in A&E, waiting for routine hospital treatment and waiting for cancer care. 

What scale of disruption can patients expect when nurses go on strike this winter?

The public inquiry into the Covid pandemic has asked to see Whatsapp messages sent by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister, along with details of communications by other senior officials. The second preliminary hearing, which opened today, is aiming to find out if there were any “plainly wrongful decision making and significant errors of…