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Over-optimistic hospitals, skin cancer drug breakthrough and feet getting bigger

Hospital finance directors have been ‘too optimistic’ in their forecasts for 2015/16, healthcare regulator Monitor has warned. The Independent and i newspapers pick up the story on their front pages this morning, with i saying hospitals must ‘face reality’ of the cash crisis.

In a letter to hospital trusts, Monitor wrote: ‘[W]e are inviting trusts to consider if their projections for 2015/16 need to be revisited, and to encourage them to be realistic.’

The Telegraph reports on a skin cancer drug to treat advanced cases, which has increased survival rates seven-fold. The drug Pembrolizumab, which prompts the body’s own immune system to attack the cancer, has been hailed as a ‘paradigm shift’ after early trials.

Has your feet been getting bigger? Apparently the answer is yes, as the College of Podiatry says British feet have grown by two shoe sizes over the past 40 years. Since 1970, the average female shoe size increased from a size 4 to a size 6, while average male feet grew from an 8 to a 10.


          

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