NHS

An NHS watchdog encourages healthy women to give birth at home or in midwife-led wards – having previously urged caution over such births. But with a shortage of midwives, is this guidance feasible?

Asthma patients are dying needlessly as a result of complacency, a damning new report has found, as experts identify “major avoidable factors” in two thirds of asthma deaths.

Would you choose cancer or dementia? As a new study finds cancer survival rates are improving, Channel 4 News looks at the diseases that are no longer a death sentence – and the diagnoses we now fear.

It’s a familiar, if sad, story. The NHS says a new breast cancer drug is too costly; doctors, patients and the manufacturer say you can’t put a value on life. But the NHS drug watchdog says it has to.

Millions of patients are going to be able to see their family doctors outside of work hours thanks to a new fund to extend GP opening times, the prime minister announces.

The doctor will Skype you now: One GP explains (via Skype) how a Skype consultation works, and says some people prefer it to meeting face to face – especially for those more embarrassing ailments…

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt tells Jackie Long today’s announcement of a pilot scheme involving extended hours at 1,000 doctors’ practices in England will mean doctors working “in a smarter way”.

Scientists conclude there is insufficient evidence to back the government’s decision to stockpile the drug Tamiflu to tackle pandemics such as the outbreak of swine flu in 2009.

Jeremy Hunt accepts that hospitals should tell patients if they suffer significant harm at the hands of medics. It comes after decades of campaigning from patients’ groups.

Brain surgeon Henry Marsh tells Katie Razzall about some of the life-or-death decisions he has had to make, and explains that if an operation has gone well he tells the patient: “I enjoyed that!”

GP services are under “severe threat of extinction” because of a “toxic mix” of increasing workloads and smaller budgets, family doctors warn.