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NHS cuts to mental health, boosting intelligence through exercise – and the GP ‘earning £500,000 a year’

By Steve Nowottny

Our roundup of news headlines on Monday 19 April.

Remember last year's Daily Mail investigation claiming that GPs were earning up to £380,000 a year? Well, this morning the paper it admits it may have been wrong – with a new story claiming that at least one GP is in fact earning as much as £500,000 a year.

In fact, the Mail is following up on a report in yesterday's Sunday Times claiming that Dr Shiverdorayi Raghavan, who runs one PMS practice and co-owns another APMS in Birmingham, ‘earned £528,000 in 2007-8 and £490,000 in 2008-9'.

An ‘exceptional figure' relating to the Government's commercialisation agenda, says the BMA - but there's on-the-record outrage not only from the Taxpayers' Alliance, but from Heart of Birmingham GP Dr Vijayakar Abrol, who says: ‘I simply cannot understand how someone could have NHS earnings like this.'

The Times reports that half a million patients with serious mental illness could lose access to ‘talking therapies' as a result of NHS efficiency savings. Monitor, the independent regulator for foundation trusts, has written to all the organisations it oversees asking them to plan for deeper cuts than previously forecast from next month.

A number of papers including the Telegraph report the case of Jenny Whitehead, a pensioner and breast cancer survivor from Haworth in West Yorkshire, who faces a five month wait for an operation to have a cyst on her spine removed.

Ms Whitehead, who suffers from severe back pain, claims she was removed from an NHS waiting list because she paid £250 to have a private consultation with an orthopaedic surgeon.

The Press Association previews Unison's health workers' conference in Brighton today, with general secretary Dave Prentis expected to warn political parties that the NHS is not a ‘soft touch' for budget cuts.

And finally the Times reports a new study revealing the mental as well as physical benefits of exercise for children. Academics from Aberdeen and Leeds universities examined the performance of about 1,000 primary school children – and found that children who took vigorous exercise every day boosted their mental age by an average of ten months.

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

Daily Digest