Bupa approved to access sensitive medical records as campaigners question patient consent for releasePrivate health firms, including Bupa, can pay £140 to identify potentially millions of patients and then access their health records, detailing intima…

GP Greg Wood says claimants were not assessed in ‘even-handed way’, blaming government training for poor treatmentMedical assessments of benefit applicants at Atos Healthcare were designed to incorrectly assess claimants as being fit for work, one of t…

Doctors’ union report condemns austerity drive that hits most vulnerable and drives inequality, poverty, and ill healthA raft of coalition policies threatens to have profoundly deleterious effects on children’s lives, driving widening inequalities and …

British Medical Association report says cuts to benefits and social care likely to hit the most vulnerable the hardestThe government’s austerity policy of pruning back welfare benefits and social care could “set the country back even further” in terms …

Senior analyst says coalition has chosen policies likely to ‘fall on the back of the poor population groups’The OECD has warned that Britain faces rising levels of inequality by pursuing austerity polices that are widening the gulf between rich and poo…

More than half of the estimated 670,000 people living with condition in the UK have not been diagnosedDoctors will be set a target to diagnose another 160,000 dementia sufferers in a government drive to tackle the incurable brain condition. Jeremy Hunt…

Care spokeswoman says government claim of £72,000 limit is untrue and most elderly people will die before reaching capLabour has broken with the cross-party consensus over the Dilnot cap for social care, branding the government’s bill to ensure older …

Shopping expert yet to visit four centres which worked away from the camera, while others have had weeks of TV attentionThe shopping expert Mary Portas spent weeks filming attempts to revive high streets in three of the locations chosen to pilot the re…

New study of public attitudes to poverty shows that solidarity among Labour voters with poor is diminishingLabour party supporters increasingly believe that welfare recipients are undeserving and that the welfare state encourages dependence, with a not…

Minister announces proposals to integrate services by 2018 to stop people being passed around hospital and social care staffThe government has announced plans for “joined-up” health and social care by 2018, potentially imposing a financial penalty on s…