Daily digest May 21 2015

Hunt promises national strategy to tackle 'great scandal' of childhood obesity

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has vowed to make tackling the 'great scandal' of childhood obesity one of the main priorities of this Parliament, the Telegraph has reported.

Mr Hunt promised a national strategy to address Britain's spiralling weight problem as he pledged to do more to support GPs and reduce pressure on hospitals.

In a speech to health leaders in central London, the health secretary said he intended to continue with his priorities before the election – improvements to cancer care, dementia and hospitals safety – but also wanted to introduce two new ones.

I think at the start of a parliament you have a chance to put in place a national strategy to reduce diabetes and indeed particularly childhood obesity, which I think is a great scandal,' he said.

Read more on the Telegraph website

More NHS hospitals breach waiting times for cancer treatment

Lives are being put at risk because more and more patients with cancer are not being treated quickly enough by the NHS as hospitals struggle to cope with demand, experts are warning.

As reported in the Guardian, growing numbers of hospitals are breaching key waiting times for cancer that are meant to ensure speedier diagnosis and treatment to maximise patients’ chances of survival.

The latest NHS England data on cancer treatment performance show that hospitals have failed to treat the required number of urgent cancer cases within 62 days for the whole of 2014-15, and have now not done so for the past 15 months. That has resulted in more than 20,000 patients being forced to wait longer than they should to receive potentially life-saving surgery, cancer drugs or radiotherapy.

Read more on the Guardian website

Obsession with weekend surgeries will harm patient care, GPs warn

GPs will today attack the prime minister’s 'surreal obsession' with weekend appointments, warning that care is already so rushed that they will have to stop offering some types of treatment, the Times has reported.

Family doctors should stop offering sick notes, re-referrals to hospital, test results and care for minor illnesses such as hay fever as part of 'emergency measures' to protect patients with serious illness, The British Medical Association is due to say in a speech at a medical conference in London. Patients are at risk from the overloading of work on doctors.

(£) Read more on the Times website