The achievements of the NHS over three-quarters of a century are remarkable and much spoken of. Ensuring our national health service has a healthy future cannot be taken for granted.

Disability benefit claims have surged in the last two years, taking in multiple health conditions and all age groups. Is it the effect of the pandemic, the consequences of NHS waiting lists, or in response to rising living costs? Chaminda Jayanetti digs into the data. Illustration by Tracy Worrall

Latest British Heart Foundation (BHF) analysis reveals that we are on the cusp of a devastating milestone.

Women’s health issues have not always been centre stage when it comes to policy discussions. However, following last year’s launch of the Government’s Women’s Health Strategy, they now rightly have found a place on the agenda. But how can we move from strategy to delivery that makes a difference on the ground? Part of the solution could be found in an important new report, ‘Informed, heard, empowered: placing women at the heart of reproductive health policy’, launched by Bayer UK.

“In other European countries, if you need a thrombectomy, you get a
thrombectomy, it’s as simple as that” Peter Hooper, stroke survivor.

I am proud to be a practising NHS hospital doctor and work in a health service that delivers patient care which is free at the point of need, regardless of a patient’s wealth, background, sex, race or age.

University of Sussex research provides clear evidence that high-capacity, responsive test, trace and isolate systems can prevent deaths in a pandemic.

Yorkshire Cancer Research is Yorkshire’s independent cancer charity and is at the heart of worldwide cancer research and innovation as it rolls out a pioneering exercise and wellbeing programme for people with cancer across the region. Our vision is that one day everyone with a cancer diagnosis in Yorkshire and beyond can benefit from these services.

Taking proper care in the sun is extremely important, we all agree on that. Yet,
exposure to UV light carries both risks and benefits and over the last few decades, the focus has only been on the risk of over-exposure and that sunlight should be avoided at all costs. But in the last few years, an increasing number of studies have identified bias in older research and that moderate exposure to UV light may outweigh the risk of over-exposure.

Imagine if your body started to turn into bone. That is the reality for people living with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), an ultra-rare and debilitating condition where soft tissue turns to bone.

Sometimes the NHS makes false economies which are short-sighted and lead to a reduction in patient dignity, a worsening of health outcomes and the creation of avoidable costs for the system as a whole. Nowhere is this clearer than in relation to the purchasing of absorbent pads in continence care.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a silent killer that claims the lives of 100,000 people annually in the United Kingdom, surpassing cancer as the nation’s leading cause of death.

Slimming World, the UK and Ireland’s most advanced and effective weight management programme, recently held a parliamentary drop-in, supported by the APPG on Obesity, highlighting how Slimming World members are able to adopt healthy lifestyles in line with key government priorities around diet, the NHS, economic growth and harder to reach communities.

Hologic UK's Tim Simpson and Sarah Smith provide a framework for putting women’s needs at the heart of healthcare services.

Following the publication of Hologic’s report into Heavy Menstrual Bleeding, ‘The right patients, the right setting, the right clinicians’, we reflect on the need to improve diagnosis and treatment of the condition, and tackle the backlog of gynaecological appointments.

Last month, a mother of three children was sentenced to 28 months’ imprisonment for ending her pregnancy. She was prosecuted under Section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act, a piece of legislation dating from 1861 that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

“Why do e-scooters and e-bikes keep exploding?” Asked a recent newspaper headline. And with good reason.

When we launched the NHS Parliamentary Awards five years ago nobody could have known how much they would come to mean to our brilliant, dedicated staff.

Inequalities between people and places are major and persistent challenges for the UK. Yet decades of policy interventions have largely failed to close the gaps that exist between different groups. Now a major new publication by Policy@Manchester, The University of Manchester’s policy engagement institute, suggests that embedding change needs to start with the local.

Pfizer UK's John McGinley explains how a flexible approach to COVID-19 management can offer the best outcomes for patients and the NHS.

Former chancellor George Osborne has told the Covid Inquiry that there was “no planning” in the Treasury for lockdowns as a response to a possible future pandemic.

Former prime minister David Cameron has told the Covid Inquiry it was a “mistake” for his government not to have prepared for a range of different types of pandemics, and instead placing a disproportionate focus on influenza.

The sentencing of a woman for procuring an abortion at a late stage in her pregnancy has provoked significant reaction. For some the focus has been the advanced nature of her pregnancy. For others, the length of the sentence that has been handed down. Some of us are horrified by both.