Pearl Roche died with dementia weeks after her family struggled to get supplies of her medication.

You could be walking around symptom-free and not know you’re pre-diabetic, living with hypertension or at a high risk of a heart attack

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Benjamin Franklin’s adage goes. Yet that simple prescription has been hard to follow in the current NHS. As has been frequently highlighted, one of the biggest challenges for the health system is not just how much we spend per capita, but where and when it is spent. In England, there has been an ongoing shift within the NHS budget towards acute hospital care – treating people in hospitals, often after they are already quite ill – while funding for primary care such as GPs has fallen.

The consequence is that the NHS is increasingly paying for serious and expensive disease treatment, rather than investing upstream to prevent disease in the first place. We spend heavily on dealing with heart attacks, strokes and other life-threatening conditions, rather than identifying those who are at higher risk and intervening earlier to reduce their chances of getting ill.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities

Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.

Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.

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For a decade I lived with a fear so bad that I once tried to climb out of a tube carriage while it was in motion. Then a hypnotherapist told me to ask my parents one very important question

In 2000, I had been living in London for just over a decade and working at EMI Records for five years. I had moved to Brixton from Surrey – where space and peace were generally abundant – in the late 80s, and I’d noticed I was becoming increasingly anxious and claustrophobic, particularly on public transport.

As things got progressively worse, I had a string of distressing panic attacks. Every time, it felt like the world around me was closing in. Then, in July 2003, during my daily commute between Brixton and the South Bank, I had a panic attack so intense I tried to climb out of the tube carriage doors. Thankfully, other passengers held me back until we arrived at the next platform – but I knew the problem was no longer something I could ignore.

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Lucy Shepherd is one of 90 women to take part in a trial helping cancer survivors come off medication.

Campaigners say care users face a postcode lottery for support overseas – despite no extra cost to taxpayer

Disabled people are being blocked from travelling abroad by NHS care boards and local councils that refuse to let them use their care funding outside the UK, the Guardian has learned.

Campaigners warn of a “postcode lottery” in England where the right of a disabled person to travel overseas depends on where they live or the whim of local officials – even when there is no extra cost to the taxpayer.

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I was told to keep my diagnosis private but I am determined to show the reality of breast cancer and reject the stigma that prevents women seeking treatment

‘Madam, this looks like breast cancer, and if it is, we will chop off your breast.” That was how the doctor welcomed me into the chaotic world of cancer in 2017 when I was 32 years old. He had his back to me, but kept on talking, peering into the specimen bottle.

For a moment, I could no longer hear him. I thought of my three children, the university degree I had just bagged and the future I had envisaged. If I was going to die, what was the point of it all? I had invested everything I had to obtain that degree, subjecting my children to days of absence while I spent my nights in the university library.

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One menopause specialist says she has seen women with up to 12 times the safe level of the hormone.

Hundreds of families say they have had to wait months or even years for a dementia diagnosis for a loved one.

The NHS has been trialling the test and says the results so far are truly promising.

Readers respond to an article by Dr Zubir Ahmed, who argued that better palliative care should be prioritised before assisted dying is legalised

I work as a renal physician, including on a transplant ward, so I will have had many of the same experiences as Zubir Ahmed, but I do not share his opinion about assisted dying (As a doctor, I say this: before we even consider assisted dying, fix how we care for the most vulnerable, 26 August).

It is universally agreed that patients with capacity should be able to make decisions about their treatment. Their decision is the one that matters if they have the ability to use and understand the relevant information and can communicate any decision they make. The doctor needs to explain possible options and their likely outcomes in as fair and balanced a manner as possible.

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Chelsea McGillivray, from Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, fell into cardiac arrest during labour after what was believed to be a textbook pregnancy.

Jo Hooper spent her 20s chasing career success, but had two work-related breakdowns before she was 31.

Wolverhampton Wood Recycling's bigger premises will bring more volunteers together, its founders say.

My partner, Clive Parkinson, who has died aged 63, was reader in arts, health and social justice at Manchester Metropolitan University. Working across the NHS, higher education and the voluntary sector, Clive became one of the UK’s leading voices in arts and health.

Born in Morecambe, Lancashire, Clive was the son of George, a lorry driver, and Betty (nee Thurlby), a shop worker; both helped nurture the compassion and sense of community that would shape his life. After leaving school at 16 in 1979 with few qualifications, Clive attended Lancaster & Morecambe College before establishing an art studio for the residents of the Royal Albert, a large Victorian hospital for adults with learning disabilities – an experience he would later describe as the most formative of his life. While there, he completed a part-time degree in independent studies and visual art at Lancaster University, where his research focused on the relationship between creativity, culture, the arts and health.

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Leading cardiovascular health groups reclassify overlooked causes and introduce sex-specific diagnostic thresholds

Doctors have agreed the world’s first universal definition of a heart attack, paving the way for millions of women to finally receive better treatment after decades of being “deprioritised”.

In one of the biggest procedural shake-ups in a generation, the world’s four leading cardiovascular health groups have signed off on new guidance for healthcare professionals when seeing suspected heart attack patients.

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Experts say imported eggs served in cafes and restaurants may be behind hundreds of infections and one death

Salmonella cases in the UK are expected to rise until the common source is identified, something that is notoriously difficult to establish, experts have warned.

There have been 474 confirmed cases and one death linked to the current outbreak, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), with the latest investigations suggesting it is associated with eating imported eggs in cafes and restaurants.

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Brazil has failed to prove compliance with EU rules on use of antibiotics in cattle and poultry farming

The UK’s leading farming organisations and animal health experts have called for an urgent ban on imports of Brazilian meat, in light of concerns over the safety of imports.

The National Farmers’ Union in England and its sister organisations in the devolved administrations wrote to the government on Friday warning that public health was at risk.

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Anti-vaxxers are spreading conspiracy theories after two recent measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania

Anti-vaccine activists are trying to track down the families of two people, including at least one newborn, who died after contracting measles in Pennsylvania, as Governor Josh Shapiro tangles with Robert F Kennedy Jr over his “inaccurate and misleading claims”.

Kennedy, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), suggested late on Wednesday that the deaths in the state may have been “fabricated” after a Republican coroner – an elected political office in Lancaster county – claimed one of the measles-associated deaths was unrelated to the virus, although the given cause would be consistent with measles.

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High blood levels of xylitol associated with higher risk of major cardiovascular events, in largest study of its kind

A common sweetener used in products such as chewing gum, toothpaste, jam, yoghurts and ice-cream has been linked to an increased risk of strokes, heart attacks and death.

Xylitol is a sugar alcohol present in some natural foods in very low amounts. It is also added – often in amounts 1,000 times higher – to artificially sweeten foods, beverages and oral care products.

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