Making healthy life expectancy central to all government policy is the surest way of stemming demand on the health service

When the secretary of state for health and social care, Wes Streeting, asked me to investigate the state of the NHS, I thought I knew what we would find. All of us who have worked in the NHS in recent years have known it was under pressure. But, as a surgeon, I am used to seeing just one piece of the puzzle. Hearing the experiences of millions of patients and staff across the country brought together left me shocked and angry.

If effective access and high-quality care are at the heart of the NHS’s social contract with the people, then it is routinely breaking its promise to the public. Too many people are waiting in A&E corridors or struggling to see a GP. Quality care should be the organising principle of the NHS. But my investigation has shown that patient care is stagnating or even declining . It is unsurprising that public trust in the NHS is at an all-time low .

Prof Lord Darzi is a former health minister, Paul Hamlyn chair of surgery at Imperial College London and co-chair of the IPPR Commission on Health and Prosperity

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Exclusive: People with type 1 diabetes may in future only need to give themselves insulin once a week, say experts

Scientists have developed a “holy grail” insulin that responds to changing blood sugar levels in real-time and could revolutionise treatment for millions of people with type 1 diabetes worldwide.

Patients currently have to give themselves synthetic insulin up to 10 times a day in order to survive. Constant fluctuation between high and low blood sugar levels can result in short- and long-term physical health issues, and the struggle to keep levels stable can also affect their mental health.

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Exclusive: Poll findings prompt calls for ministers to impose sugar tax-style levy on companies to combat obesity

A majority of people in Britain want new taxes imposed on companies that make either junk food or ultra-processed foodstuffs to help tackle the obesity crisis, polling suggests.

The findings prompted calls for ministers to help people eat healthier diets by putting a sugar tax-style levy on sweets, cereals, pizzas and other products containing too much salt or sugar.

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Why do so many of us neglect our feet, when they are crucial to all forms of movement? At 61, I decided to change all that

It’s 11 o’clock on a Thursday morning and I would normally be bashing away at a keyboard or on the phone to a workmate. Instead, I am in a south London nail bar, reclining in a motorised armchair, mechanical fingers kneading my back while my feet soak in a little whirlpool bath. Someone has brought me coffee. In the seat next to me, another customer sighs: “This is the life!” before telling me about her ingrown toenail.

It is indeed, and if I wasn’t so comfy, I would be tempted to get up and kick myself. It has taken me 61 years to have my first-ever pedicure, and the moment I sat down all I could think was: “Why did it take me so long?”

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Since fall of Roe, 14 states have passed near-total abortion bans – most with no exceptions for rape or incest survivors

As children in Texas , A and her sister were raped multiple times by their stepfather and his friends before she found she was pregnant earlier this year.

“We both had STDs because none of them used condoms,” A said. Their stepfather stopped having sex with them when he found out the sisters were treated at a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. One of his friends did not.

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Since the introduction of Covid tests, at-home testing has become a part of daily life. Now, you can test for anything from fertility to liver function. But, are we left with more questions than answers?

Afew years ago, I was in my early 30s, trying to get pregnant for the first time. Every morning I’d take the bus to work and sit, waiting, at the stop just outside my flat, next to a glowing ad for at-home fertility testing.

I started seeing these ads everywhere: ads that weren’t just for women or about making babies. From genetic cancer screening advertised on trains, to an array of tests available to buy from your local Boots, it seemed suddenly possible to identify allergies and intolerances, assess the health of your bowel or pinpoint vitamin deficiencies from the safety and comfort of your own home. The taglines for these tests ranged from “Your hormones, your way” to “Blood testing made easy” and “Knowledge is power”.

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Donation is gruelling and risky, but the reward wouldn’t even buy a new iPhone

Considering how long the cost of living has been a crisis, it’s taken a while to affect the price of one sought-after commodity: home-produced human eggs. Having been set at £750 for 13 years, the compensation limit for women who contribute their eggs is finally to rise, in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, to £986.

Not that this sum should be seen as a payment, fee or gratuity. Reporting on the increase, the BBC went out of its way to remind women that financial compensation is an incentive to niceness, nothing else: “ Egg donors warned not to do it for the £986 cash ”.

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People seeking skilled worker, health and care, or study visas drops to 91,300 in July after curbs introduced by Tories

The number of overseas workers and students applying to come to the UK has fallen after curbs on visas introduced by the previous government.

Workers and their family members applying on skilled worker, health and care, and study visas fell by more than a third in July to 91,300 compared with last year.

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Screening project aims to reduce highest cancer mortality rate in the world, but nomadic way of life means many in rural areas are unaware of services

An ambitious project in Mongolia to tackle cancer mortality rates has reached 40% of the country’s population, according to the World Health Organization.

Two years after the screening programme began in the world’s worst place for cancer survival almost half its citizens have been tested for a number of non-communicable diseases, particularly cancers.

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