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Review of antidepressants for anxiety, criticism of cancer drugs funding and concern over NHS cost-cutting

By Michael Klimes

Our round-up of the health headlines on Monday 18 April.

The Daily Mail has a story that the Department of Health has asked NICE to investigate whether antidepressants should be given to patients with social anxiety disorder. The amount of money spent on social anxiety drugs has doubled while in the last decade, with around £1.5billion had been spent on the condition.

The Guardian looks at the increasing number of patients who are being denied cancer treatment or weight loss operations because of NHS cost cutting. The warning comes in an open letter from the Federation of Surgical Speciality Associations (FSSA), which represents nine types of surgeons in the UK, and says PCTs across England are increasingly delaying or denying patients their access to such things as infected tonsils, cataracts, gallstones, wisdom teeth and varicose veins.

The Telegraphlooks at the cancer drugs fund and finds that it diverts much-needed money from other conditions. Writing in the newspaper, columnist Max Pemberton says heart failure has a worse prognosis than cancer, but politicians will not throw money at heart failure because it is a less emotive subject. All very good, but I think you heard that at Pulse first...

Spotted a story we've missed? Let us know and we'll update the digest throughout the day...

Daily Digest


          

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