Tory ex-minister Steven Dorrell questions whether Hancock would stand by some of his claims under oath

Matt Hancock has been accused of rewriting history as he seeks to rescue his reputation with the launch of a book about helping to lead the UK’s response to Covid.

Fresh from spending three weeks in the Australian jungle on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, the former health secretary has written what is billed as a tell-all account of “the successes and the failures” of tackling coronavirus.

Hip replacements fell 46% in UK as a result of Covid and knee operations by 68%, study finds

Britain may be the hobbling man of Europe, according to figures showing that the fall in the number of hip and knee surgeries as a result of the Covid pandemic was greater in the UK than in any EU country.

The number of hip replacement operations fell 46% in 2020 in the UK, compared with just 7% in Germany and 12% in France. Meanwhile, the number of knee operations slumped 68% in the UK, compared with just 3% in Finland and an average of 24% across the EU.

Tory council leader dismisses suggestions years of cuts have played role, but others beg to differ

‘I don’t need to come here often but I need it now,” Phill, a former fish filleter, tells the volunteers at the Rock Foundation food bank in Grimsby, as he gathers three carrier bags to last him the week. “I don’t like it – I call it scrounging, even though I need it. But I don’t come willy-nilly.”

Outside the queue is showing no sign of slowing. Two hours after opening, on a cold, grey day in the town once famous for its fishing fleet, men, women and whole families are still turning up to collect food from a trestle table inside the entrance of a derelict school near the docks.

Comments come as health official says earlier start to cases in UK could be knock-on effect of pandemic

Downing Street has told parents to be on the lookout for signs of strep A infection as it was confirmed that a seventh child had died in a matter of weeks.

The child, a pupil of Colfe’s school in south-east London, died on 29 November, the institution said.

Health agency warns of frost and wintry showers across UK from Wednesday as Arctic airmass hits

The UK health security agency (UKHSA) has issued a cold weather alert for England, as temperatures were expected to plunge to -10C in some places with possible wintry showers and snow.

The severe conditions, brought by an Arctic maritime airmass and expected to start on Wednesday evening and last until Monday 12 December, could lead to disruption and increased health risks for vulnerable people.

Ex-minister claims Tory peer intimated unnamed firm she was helping was being treated unfairly

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The Conservative peer Michelle Mone made “extraordinarily aggressive” lobbying efforts on behalf of a company bidding to supply Covid tests during the pandemic, Matt Hancock has claimed in a serialisation of his diaries.

The former health secretary claimed that Lady Mone made “wild accusations” about the procurement process, intimating that the company she was helping, which is not named, was suffering unfairly.

Readers respond to journalist and campaigner Liam O’Dell’s decision to stop saying sorry for his impaired hearing

A big thank you to Liam O’Dell for confronting, indeed challenging, the need for deaf people to feel obliged to apologise for their disability (I’m done saying sorry for being deaf – I want to change how society treats people like me, 25 November). In my case, apology has given way to abject submission. I no longer go to restaurants and pubs, and try to avoid big social events. I have become tired of being among groups of people where I have no idea what is being said, yet giving the opposite impression by nodding my head in approval or, worse still, laughing in unison. In these situations, my usual trick in the past has been to zone in on an unfortunate individual sitting next to me and boring them senseless with conversation of my choosing.

The biggest impact is the loss of confidence. I dread the prospect of having to communicate meaningfully with someone wearing a face mask or sitting behind a glass screen. This scenario usually concludes with the unedifying image of me contorting myself to speak through the aperture at the base of the screen. Telephone conversations with strangers are nightmarish, with many of them ending prematurely. I could go on, but this article has sparked a spirit of resistance to my compliance.
Frank Cleary
Dublin, Ireland

Fear of infection means people are discouraged from mingling, resulting in unnecessary physical and mental deterioration

If you’re an older person in hospital right now waiting for social care to help get you home, then you’re in trouble. A recent Guardian survey found that in some parts of the country one in three beds are occupied by people who are trapped there waiting for care to be arranged.

Many older people are stuck in a grim cycle of despair because the longer they remain in hospital, the less chance they have of living independently at home. There’s an oft-quoted saying that 10 days in a hospital bed leads to 10 years’ worth of loss of muscle mass in the over-80s.

David Lee is a former NHS manager

Families of customers who died after eating food containing allergens welcome report urging reforms

The families of two Pret a Manger customers who died after experiencing severe allergic reactions have welcomed a report from a senior coroner suggesting hospitals should be obliged to report fatal and near-fatal anaphylaxis.

Maria Voisin, the senior coroner for Avon, said a robust system of capturing and recording serious cases of anaphylaxis could provide an early warning of the risk posed to allergic individual byproducts with an undeclared allergen content.

Pilot scheme under way in Cornwall, with hope that self-testing will ease pressure on NHS

The midlife health check with a GP, designed to spot some of the most common conditions that affect people as they age, is to be moved online in England under plans announced by ministers.

A pilot scheme is under way in Cornwall, with health officials saying they hope to capitalise on people’s increased familiarity with self-testing and reporting online since the emergence of Covid, in an attempt to ease the burden on the NHS. But, while some patients’ groups welcomed the move, they said testing at home would not be for everyone.

Proposed changes include allowing retired staff to return to work – but not all nurses and doctors are willing

Plans to overhaul NHS pension rules have been set out by the government in an attempt to retain more senior doctors in the health service.

Launching an eight-week consultation, ministers said the proposed changes would also remove barriers to retired clinicians returning to work.

Fourth wave has prompted some Australians who are not eligible for a fourth dose of Covid vaccine to find someone who’ll give it to them

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Young Australians have been left doctor-shopping for health professionals willing to flout the rules and give them a fourth Covid vaccination.

As infections across the country continue to rise, health experts are now questioning if the second booster shot should be made available to people aged 16 to 29.

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With no official sign language, the deaf community are unable to communicate widely and are more vulnerable during natural disasters

Tasale Edward Bule, a 45-year-old fisher from Vanuatu’s Efate island, remembers the day the world went silent.

“I woke up one morning and remember not hearing the birds sing, or the rooster crowing,” Bule says.

Exclusive: economic inactivity due to sickness at highest level since records began, with north, Wales and Northern Ireland disproportionately affected

People in the UK are getting “sicker and poorer”, with a gaping health and wealth divide between regions that is only getting worse, research has found.

Economic inactivity because of sickness is at its highest level since records began, with 2.5 million working-age adults inactive due to their health, states the Institute for Public Policy Research report, which is due out later this week.

Nadhim Zahawi urges nurses to call off strikes and negotiate but union says it is ministers who are refusing to talk

The Conservative party chairman, Nadhim Zahawi, has been accused of insulting NHS workers with a “ludicrous” suggestion that it is the wrong time to strike over low pay because it would help Vladimir Putin divide the west.

Zahawi told broadcasters that nurses should call off their strikes and abandon their pay demands because it risked playing into the hands of the Russian president, who he said wanted to fuel inflation in the west.

Nadhim Zahawi says parents should look out for symptoms of infection, such as fever, headache or skin rash

Medics have raised the alarm over the ability of the NHS to cope with increased rates of strep A, after reports that a 12-year-old schoolboy from London had become the latest child to die after contracting a rare, invasive form of the infection.

On Sunday, cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi urged parents to be vigilant for signs of streptococcus A, even though most cases are mild.

The risk of getting gout has a lot to do with our genes and little to do with diet, says GP Ayo Ajanaku. Plus, sufferers Kevin Hughes and Jared West on drugs that have helped them

Daniel Lavelle is mentions that gout was historically called “the rich man’s disease” (At 35, I found out I had gout. Imagine having to give up everything you like to eat and drink, 29 November). It was also known as “the disease of kings”, but we now know that its main similarity with royalty is a predilection for certain genes. Lavelle’s article was enjoyable, but perpetuates the misconception that gout is fundamentally a lifestyle disease. This misconception can lead to shame and stigma for some patients.

Research has relatively recently confirmed that the association between diet and gout is far weaker than previously thought. The underlying driver of gout is uric acid crystals in the joints. There is evidence that diet accounts for no more than 1% of the variation in uric acid levels between people. In contrast, genetics has a tremendously greater impact on the risk of developing gout than any other risk factor. Moreover, well-meaning dietary rules can be burdensome and confusing.

After months in intensive care, Cesar Franco became the first person in Britain to have the operation because of the virus

“When I woke up I was confused. I remembered the doctors in St George’s hospital deciding to intubate me. But when I woke up from the intubation, I’d been transferred to another hospital, St Thomas’, and was on a machine that was keeping me alive. I wondered how things had gotten so bad and how I’d gone from being just ill to being, you know, very close to dying.”

Cesar Franco is reliving how he fell gravely ill with Covid-19 late last year and ended up in the intensive care unit (ICU) of St Thomas’ hospital in central London, helpless, struggling to breathe and only still alive thanks to the quiet pumping of an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (Ecmo) machine. It was the start of what became five arduous, precarious months in ICU on Ecmo. That is an unusually long time, even for a Covid patient, to receive what, for some but not all, proves to be life-saving care.

Experts have seen an increase in the number of children using melatonin. What do we know about the ‘hormone of darkness’?

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Taking melatonin used to be the habit of the jet-lagged traveller as a way to shortcut the weary bewilderment of a confused body clock. Then it was discovered by parents. “Pretty much all the kids I see, by the time they get to me, they’ve used melatonin,” says Dr Chris Seton, a paediatric sleep physician at the Woolcock Institute and the children’s hospital at Westmead in Sydney.

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the brain’s pineal gland in response to darkness; its nickname is the hormone of darkness. Levels increase at night, which helps precipitate sleepiness through its interactions with the central clock and circadian rhythm, then decrease towards dawn, precipitating wakefulness.