14th November 2023

UK Biobank shares data with insurance firm
UK Biobank is a limited company and charity set up in 2006. Volunteers aged from 40 to 69 are monitored to capture all disease events, drug prescriptions and deaths in a database. It’s now revealed that UK Biobank opened up its database to insurance sector firms several times between 2020 and 2023.

Child bronchitis due to damp homes
Dr Andy Know, senior medical director of the NHS said “Thousands of babies and toddlers are being admitted to hospital in England each year with lung conditions probably linked to damp and mould-ridden homes”.

Private rental conditions ‘shameful’
The chair of the Association of Chief Environmental Health Officers in England said a legal loophole is allowing landlords to rent out squalid homes is contributing to “shameful” conditions of the type seen nearly a century ago.

Sunak’s NHS waiting list pledge downgraded
The government has written to ICBs to say “..We are asking ICBs and providers, by 22 November, to agree the steps required to live within their re-baselined system allocation.” This signals the downgrading of No 10’s battle against waiting lists. The government were asked to provide a £1 billion to cover the cost of strikes, but have pledged just a tenth of that.