Abi Rimmer

Any legislation on assisted dying must specify that it is not a medical treatment, doctors have said.Representatives at the BMA’s annual meeting, held in Brighton on 22 June, voted in favour of this motion, which noted that attempts to legalise assisted dying in the United Kingdom were ongoing.Earlier this month the Labour MP Lauren Edwards vowed to reintroduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the House of Commons.1 The previous bill failed to reach a vote in the House of Lords when it ran out of time in the last parliamentary session, even though a majority of MPs had backed it in June 2025.2This followed discussion of hundreds of amendments brought by peers who were accused of tactical delays and “blocking” the will of …

Ministers must ensure that advanced practitioners do not diagnose conditions in or manage undifferentiated patients, and a safety review should be held into the role, doctors say.Advanced practitioners (APs) are NHS clinicians—including those from nursing, paramedic, pharmacist, and physiotherapist backgrounds—who have completed some additional training but are not medically qualified.1The use of APs in the NHS is controversial, with data indicating that they are being used to cover doctor shifts in some trusts and posing a potential risk to patient safety as a result.Now, representatives at the BMA’s annual meeting in Brighton have passed a motion calling on all UK governments to ensure that APs don’t treat undifferentiated patients.They also called for officials to develop nationally agreed scope of practice and …

More than 500 mothers and babies sustained serious and avoidable harm from a catalogue of failings in NHS maternity services in Nottingham, a landmark inquiry has concluded.Led by the senior midwife Donna Ockenden,1 the independent review found that the deaths of 156 children and six mothers could have been avoided with better care. The 156 children would be enough to fill six average primary school classrooms in England.2Considered the biggest ever maternity review in the NHS, the inquiry involved nearly 2500 families and covered maternity and neonatal care at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) from 2012 to 2025. It identified a “bullying and toxic culture” in the trust’s maternity service that had been “allowed to persist” and contributed to poor care.Ockenden said, “It is a report about what it costs when systems fail: it costs lives, it costs futures, and it costs families everything. A small number of powerful leaders—described in both family and staff testimonies as having infected the unit—created an environment in which bullying was normalised, speaking up was dangerous, and governance was shaped by self-protection rather than patient safety.”3Responding to the damning report, ministers pledged to introduce a new law compelling NHS staff and managers responsible for failures to give evidence to investigations. Individuals …

Doctors need guidance on how to challenge “unethical” procurement decisions made by their employers, the BMA’s annual conference has heard.Speaking at the union’s annual representatives meeting in Brighton last week, Claire McCue, a Glasgow based consultant, said that despite her ethical concerns she was forced to prescribe drugs supplied by the Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva.“What really concerns me about this particular company relates to human rights abuses,” said McCue. “As doctors entrusted with protecting life, we are being asked to prescribe and administer a drug from a company where it’s quoted that 20% of their staff are reservists in an occupying force1 accused of genocide.2“When I recently had …

This topic must be handled with sensitivity and at the appropriate time, Abi Rimmer hears### Chris McAloon, consultant cardiologist and Royal College of Physicians tutor“This is a very emotive and personal topic for many, if not all, of us. It is one that, on a pragmatic level, does need to be discussed in terms of service provision and maintaining patient safety.“Equally, however, it is one that requires discussion with the utmost respect, no matter the view of the other person, whether it is the same as yours or the polar opposite.“My stance as a consultant, but also a college tutor, is to respect everyone’s position, including someone’s desire not to discuss or share at all. Many people find the whole concept of talking about this topic to be a personal invasion. Asking another person’s position should, therefore, be done with very careful consideration. If a colleague clearly does …

Thousands more vulnerable patients in England will be offered the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine this winter.From September, all adults aged 65-74 in England who have a chronic respiratory condition or who have a suppressed immune system will be offered the vaccine. The rollout follows the expansion of eligibility earlier this year to around three million adults aged 80 and over and those living in a care home.1The NHS has also offered the …

The deaths of two children have prompted calls for patients referred to hospital by a GP to be assessed by a doctor.The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) campaign group has written to the health and social care secretary, James Murray,1 highlighting the deaths of 8 year old Ethan Hanson and 9 year old Dylan Cope. Neither child was assessed by a doctor while in hospital.Ethan was initially assessed by a GP, who raised the alarm about his condition and …

The UK government should introduce a legal maximum safe working temperature for hospitals and GP surgeries, the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) has said.The campaign group has written to the health secretary, James Murray, calling for a range of cooling measures in the NHS, such as air conditioning, to create safer working temperatures.The group made the call after its survey found that most healthcare workplaces were very hot or dangerously hot during the latest heatwave.1 And a government backed report from the UK Climate Change Committee said in May that UK hospitals urgently need cooling systems, as deaths and admissions were set to rise because of global heating.2The DAUK conducted its survey of healthcare workers from 25 to 29 June. The highest ever June temperature in the UK was recorded on 26 June, at 37.7°C.3Of the 1111 healthcare workers who responded …

GPs could limit appointments and cease non-contractual work as part of an escalation of collective action, the new chair of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee for England (GPCE) says.Clare Bannon told The BMJ that she would like to see the options form part of the next phase of action, which GPCE is coordinating in response to BMA GP members overwhelmingly rejecting their contract for 2026-27 in March.1However, decisions about upcoming action are yet to be made, with Bannon only taking up the post as chair on 9 July.2 She takes over from outgoing chair Katie Bramall, who held the position since 2023.Bannon said one of her key priorities as GPCE chair would be to achieve a significant increase in core practice funding: “There’s no point negotiating a new General Medical Services contract without new funding.”In February, it was announced that the 2026-27 GP contract deal included a £485m uplift to core practice funding.3This is a 3.6% cash increase, which the government said was also the second real terms increase in GP funding in two years. The full uplift figure equates to an average …

It can be tempting to label yourself a failure, instead take time to reset before starting again, Abi Rimmer hears### Annette Clancy, assistant professor of management at the School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin“Feeling devastated after a failed exam is completely normal. Disappointment arises when reality falls short of our expectations, and the pain is rarely just about the result itself. It often touches deeper anxieties about identity, capability, and career trajectory.“Psychologist Carol Dweck, whose research at Stanford shaped modern thinking on motivation and achievement, offers a useful lens.1 She proposed that people tend to hold one of two beliefs about ability. A fixed mindset reads failure as proof of inadequacy; a growth mindset reads it as information about what can be changed through effort and learning. From the latter perspective, your distress is not a character flaw, it indicates that your career genuinely matters to you. That is worth remembering.“What to do next? First, let yourself feel it and talk about it. Suppressing disappointment rarely works and often prolongs it. Give yourself a day or two before switching into problem solving mode. Then review the exam objectively. Was it gaps in your knowledge? Time management? Exam technique? External pressures such as tiredness or personal stress? Being honest, without being harsh, is essential at this stage. Seek feedback from tutors or examiners where possible; specific, actionable information is far more useful than self-criticism.“Next, separate the event from your identity. Failing an exam means you did not pass that exam …