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Media reacts to RCGP warnings, obese ‘could lose benefits’ and youngest ever hand transplant

All the nationals pick up on the RCGP’s warning that GPs are so overworked and fatigued they could be putting patients at risk, as reported on Pulse this morning.

The BBC highlights the College’s call for practices experiencing extreme pressure to be able raise an alarm, similar to the red and black alerts hospitals use.

Elsewhere, the Prime Minister is planning to cut benefits for obese people unless they try to lose weight, the Independent reports

The aim of the policy would be to make sure people seek treatment, the paper says.

It follows a Government briefing to The Telegraph about a new review of the sickness benefit system by Professor Dame Carol Black, the chair of the Nuffield Trust, which could also see drink and drug addicts denied benefits if they refuse medical treatment.

Lastly, an eight-year-old boy has become the youngest person to receive a double hand transplant, The Times reports.

The boy, Zion Harvey, had both his hands and feet amputated as well as undergoing a kidney transplant following a major infection.

Dr L Scott Levin, who heads the hand transplant program, said Zion ‘woke up smiling,’ and that there ‘hasn’t been one whimper, one tear, one complaint’.