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GPs ‘failing cancer patients’, and other stories.

Our round-up of the health news headlines on Monday 26 September.

GPs are missing serious side-effects from cancer medicines in up to 500,000 patients, campaigners claim in the Guardian today.

The article says GPs are ‘failing' patients by leaving them vulnerable to osteoporosis, heart disease and bowel trouble years after the cancer itself is eradicated.

‘GPs and oncologists are failing cancer patients far too often,' said Professor Jane Maher, the medical director of Macmillan Cancer Support.

‘By not sharing vital information and recording clearly on the patients' medical records they are putting a significant number of cancer patients at risk of having their work, health, relationships and home lives unnecessarily spoiled by long-term side-effects of their treatment.'

Elsewhere in the papers, the Telegraph pursues problems with foreign doctors working in the NHS. The NHS European Office says it feels doctors and nurses who haven't practised recently should lose their automatic right to work in England.

The Independent champions moderate drinking for asthma sufferers – but warns that beer lovers and heavy drinkers were more at risk that others.

Physios are campaigning for the right to prescribe, the BBC writes, widening the net further on the number of medics with script powers.

And lastly, the Telegraph has leapt on a study that found that childhood obesity ‘appears to begin in a mother's womb'. Overweight mothers ‘give birth of fat babies', the paper writes of a recent study of 105 pregnancies.

The story is just the latest in a long campaign against maternal weight gain: ‘Pregnant women: "don't eat for two"'; ‘Obese women have more complicated births'; ‘Babies given anti-obesity drugs in the womb'. Why the concern, Daily Telegraph? If you found yourself ballooning to twice your average size, rocked by morning sickness and mood swings, you'd be reaching for the biscuit tin too.