News round up: Cancer patients to be assessed for depression

Patients with long-term diseases to be assessed for depression

GPs must assess all patients with long-term diseases such as cancer to see whether they are suffering from depression, under new guidelines published today.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Continued good practice will radically improve our end of life care

End-of-life care on the NHS has been under renewed scrutiny recently, and rightly so. As all of us face the end of life, so we want to know what lies ahead and how we can best manage our own dying.

So what happens when someone is in the last hours of life? As disease shuts the body down, most patients become drowsier, much weaker and some become restless.

Read more on this story in The Times

Out in two years: Fury as judges cut sentence on Baby P tormentor because he ‘does not pose significant risk’

A paedophile jailed over the death of Baby Peter will walk free in less than two years after judges slashed his prison sentence yesterday.

Child protection campaigners accused judges of ‘spitting on Baby P’s grave’ after the Appeal Court ruled that Jason Owen was not dangerous enough to be locked up indefinitely.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail

Squaring the vicious circle

A rare specialist residential NHS unit is providing therapy to self-harming and other troubled youngsters by uncorking emotions.

Read more on this story in Society Guardian

Bending the rules

Critics of new medical tests aimed at getting claimants off benefits and into work say they are target-driven measures that penalise genuinely ill people.

Read more on this story in Society Guardian