Stem cell research in the US will receive a major boost today when Barack Obama lifts restrictions on federal funding that were imposed eight years ago by the Bush administration, scientists say.
The long-awaited announcement will overturn a ban that prohibits scientists from using taxpayers' money to study embryonic stem cells created after 2001.
While national debates rage over healthcare provision, a new directive is working its way through the European parliament
A leading children's hospital is to be censured by the NHS watchdog for endangering the safety of vulnerable young patients by offering them substandard care.
The Healthcare Commission will issue a highly critical report on Birmingham Children's Hospital that will highlight numerous failings in both quality of care and management processes. The hospital announced yesterday that Paul O'Connor, the chief executive, had resigned with immediate effect.
Fears of a depression and an anxiety epidemic, caused by the recession, are forcing the government to offer psychological help to millions of people facing unemployment, debt and relationship breakdown. Sufferers will be referred to psychotherapists for expert counselling via an advice network linking Jobcentres, doctors' surgeries and a new NHS Direct hotline.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was developed in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron T Beck. Beck believed that there was an important link between thoughts and emotions, and that the way we chose to interpret the events in our lives was just as crucial to our wellbeing as the events themselves. For example, while a psychoanalyst may ask you to discuss childhood experiences, and work with you to explore how your past may have affected your present, a CBT practitioner would ask you to describe what you think about a particular situation, and how those thoughts make you feel. The CBT practitioner might then suggest that you try taking a different approach to that situation, one that involves questioning your previous way of thinking, in order to create a different emotional response.
Extreme mood swings and, later, postnatal depression led Stephanie Merritt to try both psychoanalysis and cognitive behavioural therapy. Here she recounts her experiences
For the first time ever, the number of Britons over 65 exceeds those under 16. As the country grows older, the demand is growing for people to be able to work beyond pensionable age. And with advanced years comes growing political power - so the debate about retirement age is set to intensify
It takes a particular kind of person to survive the macho world of the operating theatre - and to write a book about it. Louise Carpenter meets surgeon and author Gabriel Weston
Health officials battling hospital superbugs have taken action to thwart a new peril stalking the wards - knitting.
There are fears babies' hats, blankets and bootees, knitted and donated by volunteers, could be spreading infections. Such gifts have been banned from the neonatal unit at the Royal Blackburn Hospital in Lancashire.
British team pioneers reconstruction technique using enriched tissue
PARAMEDICS were faced with a huge jump in the number of call outs due to drinking two weeks ago.
Saturday, February 28 saw the number of call outs for alcohol-related incidents double when compared to the previous Monday.
That night, paramedics and technicians from the North West Ambulance Service attended 99 incidents where they were to 47 on the Monday.
Police are not investigating the deaths of the husband and wife who became the first terminally ill British couple to be helped to die together in Switzerland, it emerged yesterday.
Peter and Penelope Duff, who were 80 and 70 and had terminal cancer, died at the Dignitas clinic near Zurich last week.
General Medical Council to publish new guidelines for GPs on end-of-life care but stance on euthanasia remains unchanged
NHS Warrington has received a glowing report of its work under a new health programme, designed to bring together the best practices from different primary care trusts around the world.
In the first assurance reports for World Class Commissioning, NHS Warrington scored 10 ‘green’ lights and four ‘amber lights’ out of the 14 assessment areas.
A monthly injection of a new drug could help some of those with one of the severest forms of asthma to control their symptoms and cut their use of steroid drugs, according to research published today.
The drug is still in early clinical trials, but a consultant involved, Professor Ian Pavord, chief medical adviser to Asthma UK, said the potential benefits for the 160,000 adults with eosinophilic asthma were "incredibly exciting" and described it as a ground-breaking therapy.
Men in their 50s who increase their exercise regime live more than two years longer than couch potatoes of the same age, a new study shows.
Males in their middle years who do a lot of physical activity, equivalent to three hours a week of sport or heavy gardening, can outlive their sedentary peers by 2.3 years and moderate exercisers by just over a year, researchers found.
Jade Goody's public discussion of her cancer has made women think of a checkup. But the NHS may refuse if you're under 25
British businesses can continue to force employees to retire at age 65 without breaking EU rules, the European court of justice ruled today. However, the case will now return to the high court, and the charity behind it, Age Concern, said the UK government now had to "overcome a high hurdle" to justify forced retirement.
Salads and sauces from takeaways contained unsatisfactory levels of bacteria in almost 5% of samples examined
British Medical Association warns fees are barrier to good health, as pressure to scrap prescription charges in England increases