Patient safety mechanism which gives patients the right to seek a second opinion having ‘lifesaving impact’, says health secretary

• ‘I am invoking Martha’s rule’: how a woman saved her father from near death in hospital

More than 500 people have received potentially life-saving care thanks to Martha’s rule, which gives hospital patients the right to seek a second opinion about their health.

They were moved to intensive care or a specialist unit after they, a loved one or a member of NHS staff triggered the patient safety mechanism, which the NHS in England began using in 2024.

Report calls for tough action to combat ‘escalating and unsustainable burden’ of liver-related problems in Europe

Governments in Europe should impose much higher taxes on alcohol and unhealthy food to tackle the continent’s 284,000 deaths a year from liver disease, experts say.

Taxes on those products should rise sharply enough for the money raised to cover the huge costs they place on health services, the criminal justice system and social services.

Exclusive: Health Foundation says Britain is ‘going backwards’ compared with most other rich countries

• Findings on healthy life expectancy in UK shed light on its deteriorating health

People in the UK are spending fewer years in good health than a decade ago, prompting concern that the population’s health is “going backwards”.

The sharp decline in Britain’s healthy life expectancy, the amount of time someone spends free of illness or disability, is in sharp contrast to its recent rise in most other rich countries globally.

Health secretary’s ‘power grab’ to override Nice comes amid growing concern move may be illegal and benefit big pharma

Dozens of MPs are opposing Wes Streeting’s decision to award himself power to dictate what the NHS pays for drugs amid growing concern the move may be illegal.

Thirty-one MPs have signed a House of Commons motion voicing their disapproval of the health secretary being handed the power to override the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (Nice) judgment on how much the NHS should spend on individual medicines.

Ministers hope tobacco and vapes bill, which will become law next week, will create a ‘smoke-free generation’

A bill banning anyone born after 2008 from buying tobacco in the UK has completed its progress through parliament in a move that ministers hope will create a “smoke-free generation”.

Under the tobacco and vapes bill anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be able to be legally sold tobacco across the UK, in an effort to save lives and reduce the burden on the NHS.