Do you want chips with that?

New AI-designed vaccine could prevent pandemics and save millions of lives, scientists say

The "super-antigen" known as a "universal vaccine" was developed using machine learning at the University of Cambridge - designed to combat a range of viruses as they mutate.

New vaccine technology created with the help of artificial intelligence could provide immunity against entire families of viruses and protect people from any future mutations in a single jab, scientists say.

The method could stop pandemics before they start, saving millions of lives and helping nations avoid lockdowns, according to researchers.


A tongue-in-cheek post title of course, but many of us have become wary of mass medication. Wary in a cynical what could possibly go wrong sense.

We’re really important says WHO

About two weeks ago, Kit Knightly had an entertaining off-guardian piece about the World Health Assembly. We all know about that lot, but the whole piece is well worth reading.


WHO in “panic mode” as World Health Assembly kicks off

Today is first day of the World Health Organization’s 79th annual World Health Assembly, where delegates come together to set policies and priorities for global health.

Essentially, it’s a week-long exercise in saying, as loud and long possible, “We’re really important.”

And thank goodness it came along when it did, because…wow.

The hantavirus outbreak is tearing through the world at the unstoppably terrifying rate of five whole deaths every two months.

That’s about 30 deaths in a year or about 0.25% of the number of people who’ll died from falling down stairs.

They pay us some money

Not personal experience, just something I heard the other day.

GP Nurse to patient: We have government targets for cholesterol, if we put a person on statins they pay us some money.

But we already knew that.

The government’s nutrient profiling model

Lidl and Iceland become first retailers to have ads banned under new junk food rules

Lidl and Iceland have become the first retailers to have advertisements banned under the UK’s new rules restricting the promotion of junk food.

The Advertising Standards Authority said ads from the two supermarkets breached regulations introduced on 5 January, which ban HFSS products (foods high in fat, salt and sugar) from being advertised on TV before 9pm and in paid-for online advertising at any time.

Under the regulations, confectionery products such as sweets and chocolates automatically fail the government’s nutrient profiling model and are classed as less healthy, meaning they cannot be promoted through paid online advertising.

Admittedly supermarkets do sell what Mrs H and I see as junk food, but we wouldn't ban supermarkets from advertising it even if we could.

The interesting aspect is the government’s nutrient profiling model which has been around for a while. Interesting because it's yet another example of the mind-boggling depths to which government micro-management has descended. 

The current version is Nutrient profiling model 2004 to 2005 which gives this brief outline of how it works -

The Nutrient Profiling Model 

The nutrient profiling model was developed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in 2004 2005 to provide Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, with a tool to differentiate of foods on the basis of their nutritional composition, in the context of television advertising foods to children. The model uses a simple scoring system where points are allocated on the basis of the nutrient content of 100g of a food or drink. Points are awarded for ‘A’ nutrients (energy, saturated fat, total sugar and sodium), and for ‘C’ nutrients (fruit, vegetables and nut content, fibre and protein). The score for ‘C’ nutrients is then subtracted from the score for ‘A’ nutrients to give the final nutrient profile score. Foods scoring 4 or more points, and drinks scoring 1 or more points, are classified as ‘less healthy’ and are subject to Ofcom’s controls on the advertising of foods to children on TV.  

Emergency constipation

How millions go to A&E with minor issues like a blocked nose

Millions of patients are going to Accident and Emergency departments across England with minor ailments, new figures reveal.

Analysis shows that over five years, A&E medics have treated nearly 1.9 million cases of headache.

Between 2020/21 and 2024/25, almost 1.4 million attendances were for a cough, while 1.2 million sought help for a sore throat.

Earache accounted for a further 1 million A&E visits, according to Press Association analysis. Other complaints included almost 69,000 for a blocked nose, 4,200 for hiccups, and 290,000 for constipation.

And presumably they can vote

In spite of the blocked nose

And the emergency constipation

Can't be accidental constipation for A&E

Unless...

A chap is bound to wonder

A chap is bound to wonder which randomised double-blind trial with a placebo control this advice was based on. 

Well okay - a chap inclined to be sarcastic might rhetorically wonder -

Super flu: Get jab to protect grandparents, urges London chief nurse

Londoners were urged to get the flu jab to protect grandparents from catching the virus during the Christmas period.

The plea came from London’s Chief Nurse Karen Bonner who warned that the super flu was still sweeping throught [sic] the capital.

Maybe Wes is implying something

2.5m Brits now on weight loss jabs but Labour wants even more

Most of the treatments, more than nine in 10, were purchased privately, with some pharmacies charging up to £389 a month.

This comes as Wes Streeting attempts to make the medication even more readily available and accessible for lower-income people.

The health secretary said "the millions who can't afford them" are missing out, and promised to make sure the jabs "are available to not just some, but to all".


Make sure the jabs "are available to not just some, but to all"? Maybe Wes is implying something about Labour voters, but sarcasm aside it's a dubious thing to push politically. 

Dubious at a number of levels, beginning with possible adverse reactions and long term consequences. The people Wes mixes with really do believe in mass medication though. No doubt they expect to link it all with digital ID.

As you were

GP practices across England now have to offer online booking

Every GP practice in England will now have to offer online appointment bookings, in a bid to reduce the so-called “8am scramble” every morning.

From 1 October, practices will be required to keep their online consultation tool open for the duration of their working hours for non-urgent appointment requests, medication queries and admin requests.


Mrs H just tried it.

No appointments available.

As you were.

A very common disease

R. Austin Freeman was a doctor before he took up writing. 

 

To save time, I may as well say that the symptoms pointed to chronic lead-poisoning. Most people nowadays know that this is a very common disease, and a few years ago, when leaden vessels were extensively used, it was even commoner than at present.

R. Austin Freeman - From a Surgeon's Diary (1905)

The history of lead poisoning seems to have faded into the background, but I'm reminded of it whenever we see pewter plates and drinking vessels in antiques centres.

Of course we now have more severe health concerns such as a 1.5C rise in global temperatures. Plus many other invented ailments of course.

Voting for the Magic Money Tree

Labour voters back doctors over five-day strike and think Wes Streeting should meet pay demands

Labour voters support junior doctors’ plans to stage a five-day walkout next week, even as public support for the strike collapses, according to a new poll.

Overall people oppose the industrial action due to start next Friday by a margin of 44 per cent to 34 per cent, pollsters More in Common found.

However, Labour voters support the strikes, with 47 per cent in favour and 35 per cent against, in a major challenge to the stance taken by the health secretary Wes Streeting who has vociferously pressed doctors’ leaders to ditch their plans.

Yet another broad hint that incompetent voters should be included in the broader social and political incompetence mix. 

To say this is not to say that one side is right and the other wrong, or that there are lines professional people such as doctors should not cross, even though there are such lines. The problem here is voters who among other shibboleths, effectively vote for an NHS which cannot be reformed in any worthwhile sense.

Blairism with a smartphone

Kristian Niemietz has a very interesting CAPX piece on the close similarities between the Starmer government's 10-year plan for the NHS and a plan from the Blair years 25 years ago.


Labour’s NHS plan is just reheated Blairism

• The Government's 10-year plan for the NHS is almost identical to a document from 25 years ago
• Keeping up with developments in healthcare policy is like watching Groundhog Day
• Revitalising old agendas for reform will never sort out the issues facing the NHS

Yesterday, the Government published its policy paper ‘Fit For The Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England‘, which announced:

[I]nvestment has to be accompanied by reform. The NHS has to be redesigned around the needs of the patient. Local hospitals cannot be run from Whitehall. There will be a new relationship between the Department of Health and the NHS […]

The principles of subsidiarity will apply. A new system of earned autonomy will devolve power from the centre to the local health service as modernisation takes hold. […]

A Modernisation Agency will be set up to spread best practice. Local NHS organisations that perform well for patients will get more freedom to run their own affairs.

Or actually, it didn’t. That quote is from ‘The NHS Plan: A plan for investment. A plan for reform‘, published almost exactly 25 years ago today, during Tony Blair’s first term.


The whole piece is well worth reading as another indication that reforming the NHS has never been on any political agenda. Tinkering yes, reform no. Politicians still rely on technology and bombastic rhetoric to supply something they can sell as progress - smartphones in this case.


There are good things in the plan, even if they are not genuinely novel. The NHS App, which was useful enough during the pandemic, has largely been lying dormant since, because there was not much that one could do with it. The 10-year plan wants to add extra functions to the app, so that it becomes a tool for conveniently choosing healthcare providers, and a source of information about them. NHS Trusts will be given greater autonomy over their budgets, and payment formulas will be changed, to strengthen the principle that the money follows the patient. When patients are strongly dissatisfied with the care they receive, it will even be possible to withhold a part of the payment from the provider. These are all sensible extensions of Blair-era reforms.

And that is, perhaps, the most generous reading of ‘Fit For The Future’: it is a revitalisation of an earlier reform agenda, combined with some evergreen topics that, within the current system, never truly get sorted out.

In the current context, this is probably as good as it gets. But it comes nowhere near justifying the Government’s bombastic rhetoric of ‘transformational change’ or a ‘break with the past’. It is Blairism with a smartphone, nothing more, nothing less.

Plan 10 from Outer Space

Supermarkets told to cut shoppers' calories in obesity crackdown

As part of a government initiative aimed at taking some pressure off the NHS, food retailers and manufacturers will "make the healthy choice the easy choice" for customers in a country with the third highest adult obesity levels in Europe.

Supermarkets will be required to report sales data and those that fail to hit targets could face financial penalties, Nesta, the innovation agency which initially developed the policy, suggested...

The new scheme, announced on Sunday by the Department for Health and Social Care, is part of the forthcoming 10 Year Health Plan, through which the government is seeking to shift from sickness to prevention to alleviate the burden on the NHS.

A chap is bound to wonder about the level of enthusiasm behind the 10 Year Health Plan. It's one of those notions where a fly on the wall could tell us a great deal about the attitudes of those who sat round a table and formulated it. Were they as keen as low-calorie mustard?

Were they enthused with their mission? Did they crack a few jokes at the first meeting to break the proverbial ice? Did they offer disparaging anecdotes about people they had seen in supermarkets and their awful diet as revealed by the contents of their shopping baskets? Concerned, caring anecdotes of course.

Carry On at Your Convenience

NHS sees patients as an inconvenience, says new boss

The NHS sees patients as an “inconvenience” and has “built mechanisms to keep them away”, its new boss has said.

Sir Jim Mackey said the health service was too often “deaf” to criticism, “wasted a lot of money” and deployed far too many “fossilised” ways of working that had not changed since its foundation in 1948.

In his first interview since becoming head of the NHS, Sir Jim told The Telegraph the health service had “made it really hard” for patients to get the care they needed.

Easy diagnosis, but let's see how treatment goes under a Labour government...

Take three Targets every day...

Forever

Measly Morphing

Glastonbury warning over 'highly infectious disease' as festival-goers urged to take action

Glastonbury festival-goers have been urged to get vaccinated against a "highly infectious" disease amid ongoing outbreaks across Europe.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has warned that measles is "circulating across the country", with high numbers in the South West.

The UKHSA confirmed last week that 109 cases of the Victorian-era disease were recorded in April and 86 in May. Unvaccinated children aged 10 years and under have been the worst hit.


Britain morphing into ‘National Health State’, says think tank

Britain is turning into a “National Health State”, a think tank has said after the Chancellor gave the NHS a major funding boost in her spending review.

The health service was the big winner of Wednesday’s spending review, receiving an extra £29 billion per year for day-to-day spending and more cash for capital investment.

Rewiring

Plan to divert millions of patients from waiting lists with GP service expansion

A scheme which allows family doctors to seek advice from specialists before referring patients will be expanded with the support of an £80 million funding package...

It follows an announcement in January that GPs would be offered £20 every time they consult a specialist using the scheme

Health minister Karin Smyth said: “By caring for patients closer to home, we save time and stop masses of people having to head to hospital for unnecessary appointments in the first place.

“We are rewiring the NHS so that we are doing things differently, more efficiently and delivering better outcomes for patients.


That's another undefined political term to add to the list - rewiring. Not turbocharged rewiring of course - not for the NHS. For some reason I keep thinking of pianos though, can't imagine why that is. 

It may not be long before GPs consult an AI system instead of a specialist, but experience suggests that may not equate to a saving of £20 per consultation.

The hours just float away

Two days ago I managed to damage the middle finger of my left hand while chopping wood. Somehow I managed to crush it with a big log. It's heavily bruised, inclined to bleed around the nail and an X-ray this morning showed a fracture at the end of my finger.

Not too serious and I'm right-handed anyway, but these things absorb so much time. I've had good local hospital treatment, but NHS time is different, the hours just float away.

So long, NHS England, and thanks for nothing

Matthew Lesh has a topical CAPX piece on Keir Starmer's 'abolition' of NHS England and a reminder that in StarmerWorld, 'abolition' doesn't necessarily mean 'abolition'.

So long, NHS England, and thanks for nothing

• The PM's NHS reform is welcome, but unlikely to reduce bureaucracy
• To sort out our healthcare system properly, it must be decentralised
• Bureaucratic restructuring is not the wholesale reform the NHS needs

NHS abolition was not on my bingo sheet for Keir Starmer’s Government. But here we are. A political earthquake. Kissinger has gone to China. The party most closely associated with Britain’s healthcare system are the ones who finally be replacing it with a much more successful European-style social insurance system. Finally, fewer Britons will die compared to world-leading healthcare systems, like Australia’s.

Reader, I have fooled you. None of this is true.

What Starmer has in fact abolished is NHS England. While this may be a gift to headline writers, it is not a radical step, it’s a bureaucratic reorganisation. A separate quango will no longer be responsible for overseeing the budget, planning and delivery along with commissioning GPs and some other services. Instead, this function will be bought in-house to the Department of Health and Social Care. The nameplates on several buildings will be changed, new stationery ordered and different email addresses in use. But fundamentally, the NHS will remain the same.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that "Sir" Keir Starmer has no notion of a world beyond the corporate state and no notion of any world beyond his ideology. This useless bureaucratic fiddling is merely a pale and irrelevant attempt to share a tiny fraction of Trump's radicalism.

Perhaps next time we read headlines about ‘NHS abolition’ it will mean something a bit more meaningful than a bureaucratic restructure.

Charity ambassador

Rishi Sunak ‘honoured’ to become prostate cancer charity ambassador

Former prime minister Rishi Sunak has said he is “honoured” to become an ambassador for a prostate cancer charity.

He will support Prostate Cancer Research’s campaign to introduce a national screening programme for men at high risk of the disease.

Last Thursday Mr Sunak met workers at the laboratories of British cancer diagnostics company Oxford BioDynamics, where they are working on a new blood test.


Mrs H had a hospital appointment early this morning, nothing serious fortunately and we're back home now, but as we settled down with a cuppa, this headline caught my medically-attuned attention.

 
Merely a casual observation this, but I reckon Rishi Sunak is a much better choice for the role than, say Keir Starmer would be even after he has finally been ousted as PM. Politically I'm not a fan of either man, but Sunak comes across as decent and suited to it, while Starmer doesn't.

I don't know much about it and only know one chap who contracted prostate cancer. Haven't seen him for a few months, but it was caught early and he seems to be fine.

Not an ultra-rare Grauniad piece though

Vote on assisted dying summons ultra-rare Commons sight: intelligent debate

The emotion on display during five hours of heated discussion speaks to the complexity and importance of the bill itself

This was the Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater’s bill so she got to talk first. Horror stories of people dying agonising deaths – deaths that no one would wish on their worst enemies. Jennie the guide dog snoozed in an aisle. Her dreams untroubled. She knew that when the time comes, her end will be painless and swift. Even if not of her conscious choosing.

Although there are good arguments on both sides, it's not a complex issue, the main point for each side may be stated in a single paragraph. However it is an opportunity to air a cascade of emotional anecdotes and imaginary scenarios. Political actors and comfort-zone media such as the Grauniad love all that. 

The independent Adnan Hussain thought we had already started assisted dying by removing the winter fuel allowance. For the only time in the debate, cries of “shame” were heard.

Of course they cried "shame" - what a spoilsport.

Broken not beaten

Politics latest: 'Broken not beaten' NHS to get billions in new funding - but Reeves warns there's no silver bullet

With just one day to go until Labour's first budget since 2010, the government is pledging billions of pounds of new funding for the NHS, but is also warning that reform is needed over the long term. 


I wish they would avoid these infantile sound bites. 'Broken not beaten' - it's the stuff of comics and inarticulate sports commentators. At least tell it as it is -

'The NHS is not fit for purpose in the modern world, more money isn't what is needed but for compelling political reasons we don't care about that because we aren't the people to deliver genuine reform. So in the mean time suck it up.'