By Gareth Iacobucci
Our round-up of the health news headlines on Wednesday 7 July.
Let's get the gloom out of the way first, albeit different levels of gloom, as the discussion on cuts gathers pace this morning.
First the Daily Mail reports that up to 40,000 NHS staff face the axe as part of the Government's savage programme of cuts.
The Daily Telegraph is slightly more conservative (with a small ‘c') in its estimates, predicting that at least 10,000 NHS jobs are earmarked to be cut, using figures from the Royal College of Nursing.
The same figures are reported in the Guardian, which says the scale of the cuts has led to 9,973 posts already being lost through recruitment freezes
The Independent, meanwhile, reports that chancellor George Osborne is resisting pressure from Conservative MPs to end the immunity from budget cuts he has given the NHS.
In summary? No one knows, but it doesn't look rosy.
Elsewhere in the Telegraph, we read that a review is to be carried out of the Cancer Reform Strategy to focus on bringing survival rates up to match the best in the world.
Also in the Telegraph, we read of concern over a new legal high ‘sweeping Britain' (their words not ours) - dubbed NRG 1 – which is essentially made up of the same substances as mephedrone, which was outlawed by the Government in April.
Here's some advice that sounds like its already being acted upon at Pulse Towers. The Mail tells us that sweet tea, or sweetened drinks in general, make people less argumentative and aggressive. Hmm, maybe not so much. Two sugars anyone?
And finally, our favourite story of the day, nay the week. The Mail reports that an NHS hospital allowed a 'big budget' porn film to be shot in one of its wards. Quite why it makes any difference what the budget is a mystery to us. But it got Pulse thinking... surely NHS bosses are missing a trick here. Is this not the best use for polyclinics yet…?
Spotted something we've missed? Let us know and we'll update the digest throughout the day.
Daily digest
