Most believe they will struggle to get an appointment, with over a quarter choosing to manage ailment themselves

Almost half the public delay or avoid contacting their GP surgery when they are ill, mainly because they think they will struggle to get an appointment.

Overall 48% of people across the UK did not bother to ask their family doctor for help – either initially or at all – when they got sick over the past year, a survey found.

Faster access to GPs and A&E are the public’s top priorities for the NHS.

Only 32% believe the NHS provides a good service nationally.

42% think the standard of NHS care has worsened over the past year and only 12% think that it has improved.

47% fear NHS care will decline further over the next year and just 15% expect it to get better

Disease, which causes people to stop breathing while asleep, linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke

Obstructive sleep apnoea costs the US and UK economies more than £137bn ($185bn) a year, according to research.

People with the serious health condition repeatedly stop breathing temporarily while asleep; they tend to snore very loudly and can wake up gasping for breath.

Those with the condition share varying views of John Davidson’s tic during Sunday’s awards ceremony

It was an incident that sparked a furore: during Sunday’s Bafta ceremony Tourette syndrome (TS) activist John Davidson made several outbursts, including shouting the N-word as actors Delroy Lindo and Michael B Jordan were presenting a prize on stage.

Among others to comment on the incident were actors including Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce, who starred alongside Jordan in The Wire.

Ukrainian soldiers are sent to The Forest Glade – Ukraine’s first centre for the treatment of psychological trauma – before returning to the frontline. After spending over three years in Russian captivity following the battle for Mariupol, 25-year-old Kyrylo Chuvak spends three weeks at the centre, a brief opportunity for rehabilitation. Hidden in the pines near Kyiv, this modest building offers soldiers psychological therapy as well as tango, archery, guided breathing, medieval games and quiet conversations over tea. After four years of war, and with waning international attention, the battle is not only taking place on the frontline but in the mind

Ukrainian soldiers suffering from PTSD, depression and anxiety are sent to the Forest Glade – Ukraine’s first centre for the treatment of psychological trauma – before returning to the frontline.  After three years in Russian captivity following the battle for Mariupol, 25-year-old Kyrylo Chuvak spends three weeks at the centre, a brief opportunity for rehabilitation. Hidden in the pines near Kyiv, this modest building offers soldiers psychological therapy as well as tango, archery, guided breathing, medieval games and quiet conversations over tea.  After four years of war, and with waning international attention, the battle is not only on the frontline but in the mind 

A former Soviet military facility offers an unlikely respite – before its patients return, too quickly, to the frontline

• Ksenia Savoskina directed the Guardian documentary No Time to Heal, which follows the psychological rehabilitation of a Ukrainian soldier after three years in Russian captivity

Imagine a place hidden deep in a pine forest, with small lakes and ponies. Far from the noisy city. In the middle of it there is a modernist Soviet building with marble walls. Walls that have heard so many stories of suffering, loss and death.

This place was built in 1974 as a secret sanatorium for the ministers of Soviet Ukraine. Later it hosted soldiers returning from the 1979-89 Afghan-Soviet war. Then, from 2014, those coming back from the war in eastern Ukraine. And now, soldiers from every part of the Ukrainian front.

Ksenia Savoskina is a Ukrainian film-maker and the director of No Time to Heal

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Grace Bell says she is ‘the happiest I’ve ever been in my life’ after giving birth to baby Hugo in UK first

A baby boy named Hugo is the first child to be born in the UK to a mother with a womb transplant from a dead donor.

Hugo Powell was delivered at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea hospital in London weighing 3.09kg (6lb 13oz), after his mother, Grace Bell, received a transplanted womb from someone who had died.

Mistaken identity, dementia, family dysfunction and a murky past entwine in this Spanish horror involving a sprightly octogenarian with a penchant for torture

Understandably, we tend to think of elderly women as among the most vulnerable in society, and so that means they make excellent nemeses in horror films because no one thinks that an old dear could do much damage. Unless, that is, she’s got a fire poker, a house full of useful clutter, dementia and a violent streak, as is the case with Alicia, played here by the wonderful Carmen Maura, once the lead in Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Now 80 years old, still spry as a whippet and clearly up for movie mischief, Maura gives Alicia a dirty glint in her eye as she confuses her daughter’s ex-boyfriend Pedro (Daniel Hendler, showing great comic chops) with her late husband Cesar. He apparently turned Alicia on to some BDSM fun and games in their youth, and may have assisted Alicia in covering up a murder or two. Unless she’s just making that part up – it’s hard to tell what’s true or false given her murky memory.

On a dark and stormy night, Pedro arrives at the insistence of his ex Laura (Agustina Liendo) to check on Alicia in the decrepit mansion where she lives alone. Laura is on a road trip with her young daughter (Emma Cetrángolo), but she’s sensed that something’s up, especially since when she called Alicia’s carer, Alicia herself answered the phone. Pedro’s unfortunate resemblance to Cesar gets him lashed to an armchair in chains and duct tape while Alicia quizzes him on their history, with gory results.

For a long time fat was seen simply as an inert yellow substance wrapping around our bodies, but now that’s changing. Scientists are beginning to understand that our fat is actually intricate and dynamic, constantly in conversation with the rest of the body. It’s now even considered by some to be an organ in its own right. To find out more about the complex role fat plays in our health, Ian Sample hears from co-host Madeleine Finlay and from Declan O’Regan, professor of cardiovascular AI at Imperial College London

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

I suffered with my mystery illness for decades before gaining a diagnosis.
Could retraining my brain be the answer?

At the Croydon secondary school I attended in the late 1990s, the deputy headmistress was a stocky woman with a military haircut who patrolled the corridors in voluminous outfits patterned in shades of brown. The outfits were much discussed, not charitably, by the teenage girls in her charge – as was her voice, which made you think of a blunt knife being drawn across a rough surface. Thirty years later, I can still hear that terrible voice refer to my “mystery illness”. In truth, the deputy headmistress never actually spoke those words – they were included in a typed letter she sent to my parents concerning my prolonged absence from school. Still, the indicting force of five syllables is as distinct in my ear as if she were looming over me.

I was 11 and, after coming down with a normal-seeming virus, I simply hadn’t got better. Instead, my system seemed to have become stuck, sunk into some grey, unchanging state. I had a headache, a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes, body pains both dull and sharp, fatigue and weakness, plus something I later learned went by the name of “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome”: a faintness and momentary blacking out upon sitting or standing up. When I list the symptoms in this way, as a collection of discrete and manageable items, it seems false. I wish things felt discrete and manageable. Instead, being ill felt – and still feels – more like a thick, obscuring cloud. When that cloud descends, my blood feels like old glue mixed with whatever you’d scrape off the bottom of a Swiffer. During bad episodes, I can’t quite locate my mind, or my personality. Reading is impossible. TV is abrasive. Breathing feels effortful, forming words is a strain.

This US tech giant should not have been given NHS or Ministry of Defence contracts, writes Stephen Saunders. Plus a letter from Jan Savage

For 100 years, the UK government has led us through existential threats, including two world wars. But instead of resisting the latest threat to democratic accountability, it has welcomed it with open arms: Palantir Technologies (NHS deal with AI firm Palantir called into question after officials’ concerns revealed, 12 February).

This polarising US surveillance giant provides data-fusion and AI platforms used by by the US for immigration enforcement and by Israel in the Gaza conflict. Its software amplifies state power through militarised analytics and opaque algorithms.

Health secretary probably referred to Harvard psychiatrist who says he’s ‘never used the word “cure” in my work’

Psychiatric researchers are pushing back against the claims by the health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that a doctor at Harvard “cured schizophrenia using keto diets”, while also acknowledging that a carefully supervised ketogenic diet shows promise for a variety of mental health conditions.

Kennedy Jr’s statement probably referred to the Harvard psychiatrist Dr Christopher Palmer, who said he has “never once used the word ‘cure’ in my work. I have never claimed to have cured any mental illness, including schizophrenia,” but added: “I have talked about ketogenic diet being a very powerful treatment, even to the point of inducing remission of symptoms of schizophrenia.”

Exclusive: One in four wait at least three years for diagnosis and many face treatment ‘access lottery’, report finds

Millions of people living with rare genetic conditions across the UK are being “systematically ignored” by the NHS and facing inadequate care, according to a report.

Rare genetic conditions, such as Williams syndrome and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, affect more than 3.5 million people across the UK. One in 17 people are affected by a rare condition at some point during their lives.

A huge vaccination drive has been launched after the country’s first outbreak in years of the paralysing disease. But the battle to wipe out the virus is struggling elsewhere, so how can it be eradicated?

As a seven-year-old boy is treated for polio at a hospital in Malawi, the country has launched a major vaccination campaign to stem an outbreak of the disease.

The effort in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries and badly hit by the aid cuts, has seen an astonishing 1.3 million children already vaccinated against the disease in just four days after emergency supplies were airlifted in by the World Health Organization (WHO) just over a week ago.

Karen Ford’s granddaughter became seriously ill, highlighting just how important it is for communities to have herd immunity

Your report on the response to the measles outbreak in north London highlights the profound consequences of falling immunisation uptake (‘A lot of vaccine hesitancy’: how north London council is responding to measles outbreak, 16 February). Behind the statistics are real and frightening experiences for families like ours.

My granddaughter, not yet eligible for the vaccine, was admitted to hospital in late November with respiratory syncytial virus and bronchiolitis. Shortly after being discharged, she developed pneumonia, later followed by a rash: measles. She became seriously ill and needed urgent readmission. Sitting for hours holding her small body, unsure how the illness would progress, is something our family will never forget. She was so weak she could barely cry.

These harnesses are increasingly popular, but experts are divided on how useful they are. I decided to give one a try

When I sat at my desk this morning, I couldn’t slouch over the keyboard like I usually do. As much as I tried to hunch over, my back was held straight, shoulders pulled back. My trick? I was wearing a corset-like device with straps over my shoulders that forced me into an upright position.

Posture correctors claim to provide instant improvement in posture and relieve the back, shoulder and chest pain often associated with poor posture, if worn long term. The one I have on, Vicorrect (£29.99), is one of many on the market – Lidl’s budget posture trainer (£7.99) is now sold out; Taylor Swift has been spotted wearing a sports-bra version by Forme (£140).

As a doctor, I have a front-row seat to the physical, emotional and financial impact on women who find themselves in the role of primary carer

“Why do you always grip the dashboard like that when I am driving?”

It’s the bleary-eyed 5am run to rowing practice and I have just relented to the eager “can I drive?” When your teenager takes a reluctant “I guess” as full-throated approval, you still want to show grace. Especially when there are many more mandated hours of supervision en route to a probationary licence.

Former employees stepped up to create the National Public Health Coalition to advocate for public health after Trump’s cuts to the agency

Abby Tighe thought she had landed her forever job. She joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in December 2023, managing a national youth substance abuse prevention program. The project focused on rural communities, and Tighe, whose family is from Appalachia, was proud to be using her public health training to support often-overlooked parts of the country. “The CDC was different than anywhere else I’ve worked,” says Tighe. “People didn’t care about their own ambitions as much as they cared about the larger mission. It was always my dream to work there.”

That dream ended a year ago, when Tighe received a form email on 14 February letting her know the Trump administration was firing her. Classified as a probationary worker, she was one of the first to lose her job in what quickly became a dramatic downsizing of the CDC workforce. To date, the current administration has either fired or is in the process of firing more than 4,000 CDC employees – a third of the agency.

It’s tempting to dismiss the proliferation of labels as a fad, but there’s more to this phenomenon than a simple culture-war reading allows

My psychological research rarely makes good comedy material, but in a standup show in London recently, those two worlds collided. One of the jokes was about how everyone is getting diagnosed with ADHD these days – about the social media videos that encourage viewers to identify common human experiences, like daydreaming or talking a lot, as evidence of the condition. The audience laughed because everyone got it – they’ve all witnessed how common it seems to have become in the last few years. When something becomes this prevalent in society, and this mystifying, it’s no surprise it ends up as a punchline.

Part of my work as an academic involves trying to solve the puzzle of why so many more people, especially young people, are reporting symptoms of mental illness compared to even five or 10 years ago. (ADHD is a form of neurodivergence, rather than a mental illness, but both have seen an increase, so they are related questions.) Whenever I talk about this – to colleagues, school staff, parents – it doesn’t take long until someone brings up that judgment-laden, hot-button word: overdiagnosis.

They’re often compassionate good listeners who focus on their clients’ needs – so is it any wonder many patients find themselves with a crush? A writer, who is in exactly this position, talks to people on both sides of the couch

I was half-watching the latest series of the Netflix romcom Nobody Wants This when suddenly things got interesting. Spoiler alert: it had just been revealed that one of the characters (Morgan) was in a relationship with her newly ex-therapist (Dr Andy). While some of the characters freaked out, declaring the relationship very concerning, I felt a frisson of excitement. Because I, too, have harboured the desire to date my therapist.

As it turns out, this fantasy is neither unusual nor unexpected. “Psychoanalysis almost insists on transference,” explains psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber, using the term coined by Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, in his 1895 work Studies on Hysteria. The basic premise is that the patient projects old feelings, attitudes, desires or fantasies on to their therapist. This can manifest in numerous ways – often at the same time – covering the whole gamut of emotions and relationships, from love to hate, maternal to erotic, and everything in between.