Daily digest March 26 2015

Patients 'at risk as cash crisis looms'

The NHS is getting worse for the first time in 20 years, according to a study that warns of rising waiting times and overcrowded wards, the Times reports.

Patients are at risk because one in six hospitals is essentially full and worse is to come after the election as the health service runs out of money, says a leading health think tank. In a mixed verdict on the government’s health record, The King's Fund says that NHS performance held up well in the first half of the parliament before worsening as bosses ran out of easy efficiency savings.

Thousands of extra doctors and nurses have been recruited and there are fewer managers, while funding was increased by billions more than promised. Yet this is no longer enough to cope with big rises in appointments, referrals, scans and emergency visits, its research has found.

(£) Read more on the Times website: click here

HIV transfusion victims angry at blood inquiry 'whitewash'

Campaigners reacted with fury yesterday to a 'whitewash' report into a scandal in which thousands of people contracted HIV and Hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood by the NHS, according to the Express.

Prime Minister David Cameron apologised to those whose lives have been ruined by the error and pledged an extra £25 million towards compensation. Campaigners burned copies of the Penrose Inquiry and said they had not received a single answer to their questions.

In the 1970s and '80s, thousands of people, including hundreds of haemophiliacs, were infected with Hepatitis C or HIV during blood transfusions. Many have since died.

Read more on the Daily Express website: click here

Study finds milk helps combat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

Drinking three glasses of milk prevents Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, new research suggests.

Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Centre found a correlation between milk consumption and higher levels of a naturally-occurring antioxidant called glutathione in healthy older people, the Telegraph reports. The antioxidant is believed to help stave off oxidative stress and the resulting damage caused by reactive chemical compounds produced during the normal metabolic process in the brain.

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and an editorial said the study presented 'a provocative new benefit of the consumption of milk in older individuals', which served as a starting point for further study of the issue.

Read more on the Daily Telegraph website: click here

Denying breast scans to the over 70s is costing lives

Older women are dying needlessly from breast cancer because they are not offered screening on the NHS, MPs warn.

They say it is wrong that women are no longer invited for mammograms once they reach 70 when they are more likely to die than those in their 50s and 60s, according to the Daily Mail.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Breast Cancer also warns that an age-bias in the NHS is denying thousands of older women life-saving surgery and chemotherapy. They say attempts by ministers to end this culture have been ‘limited’, ‘disappointing’ and ‘too slow.’

Read more on the Daily Mail website: click here