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Tim Kavanagh The UK government has ruled out introducing legislation to allow assisted dying in England and Wales but will allow a free vote if a private member’s bill is introduced, it emerged this week. The government was responding to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee’s report on assisted dying,1 published on Monday 29 April immediately before MPs debated a petition with more than 200 000 signatures on assisted dying. The petition, backed by the journalist Esther Rantzen, who has stage IV lung cancer, called for the government to allocate time to a full debate on a...

A 10 year government strategy intended to reduce use of illegal drugs, drug related deaths, and crime by ushering in a new public health approach to drug services has so far failed to deliver, MPs have reported. Despite £903m to fund the strategy for 2022-25,1 there has been no reduction in the “tragic deaths and harms caused by illegal drug use, a desperate blight on our whole society,” said the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier, after an inquiry into progress so far.2 She said, “Deaths from drugs continue to rise, drug use shows no reduction in the last 10 years, and...

Cuts to the UK’s foreign aid budget have “directly” caused a “horrifying” rise in worldwide deaths during pregnancy and childbirth and must be reversed, a hard hitting report from MPs has concluded. In a report published on 25 January1 the Commons International Development Committee warned that cuts to British aid from 2020 onwards were costing the lives of the most vulnerable women in the world and were likely to lead to nearly 200 000 more unsafe abortions being performed in Africa alone. The report was based on recently published data gathered by the Foreign, Commonwealth and De...

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has welcomed a government pledge to overhaul maternity services, “with a laser-like focus on birth trauma”—alongside prioritising women’s healthcare, notably problem periods, endometriosis, and the menopause. In a statement college president Ranee Thakar welcomed the pledge by the health and social care secretary, Victoria Atkins, to prioritise access to care for often progressive gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis and fibroids. “I am also glad to see that ensuring high quality care following birth trauma has been rec...

Early marriage—commonly associated with violence and kidnapping—is a huge health risk for young girls. An ActionAid UK led initiative is tackling the root cause Ama was 14 when she was abducted on her way home from school in the Upper West region of Ghana. “I was really scared and very worried about what was going to happen to me,” Ama recalls. “My elder sisters had been abducted and forced into marriage at an early age and they suffered terribly.” More than 250 million women and girls globally were married before their 15th birthday.1 Early marriage most commonly follows violent a...