Pulse reported on Monday that Dame Jo Williams had resigned as chair of the CQC. The story continues in the Independent as Dame Jo was yesterday ‘forced to apologise' to a committee of MPs for making public allegations about the mental health of whistleblower Kay Sheldon.
And Dame Williams isn't the only one having a hard time at work – the Telegraph reports that the number of people admitted to hospital for stress has risen by seven per cent in a year.
In the year to May there were 6,370 stress-related hospital admissions in England – 410 more than in the previous 12 months.
The North-west had the highest admission rate, with 1,390 people given hospital treatment for stress, compared to the lowest rate of 350 in the South-west.
The data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre suggests that it is workers in particular who are under too much emotional and mental pressure. The Mental Health Foundation has blamed the gloomy economic climate, saying that the rising figures were ‘not surprising' at such a time.
Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: ‘We know that the outcomes of recessions – rising debt, unemployment and insecure housing – are associated with poorer mental health in individuals and poorer mental health is often linked to poorer physical health.
‘Sustained periods of stress, anxiety and depression can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease.'
And finally, more bad news from the Telegraph: gonorrhoea cases have increased by 25 per cent in just one year.
There were almost 21,000 diagnoses of the STI in 2011 compared to under 17,000 in 2010, according to new statistics from the Health Protection Agency.
Most new cases have been diagnosed in gay men but, amongst heterosexuals, more than half are in 15-to-24-year-olds.
Still trailing chlamydia by quite some way, gonorrhoea is now the second most common bacterial STI in Britain.
Peter Greenhouse, a spokesperson for the British Association for Sexual Health & HIV, warned that resistance to a new antibiotic called ceftriaxone is growing rapidly. ‘In five years we are going to be in real trouble,' he said.
