Hospitals in England could be on the brink of collapse because of rising demand and the increasing complexity of patients’ conditions, doctors warn.The Royal College of Physicians’ report said the number of beds had been cut by a third over the past 25 years.It said at the same time emergency admiss

Breast cancer screening saves the lives of two women for every one patient who receives unnecessary treatment, according to a major European review.There has been a fierce debate about the use of screening, and policy is being reviewed in England.The latest study, published in the Journal of Medical

(Reuters Health) – People in developing countries with heart problems may not be able to afford new pacemakers, but a new study suggests devices removed during autopsies may have enough remaining battery life to be donated and used again.Researchers found that of 334 autopsies preformed at the Unive

(Reuters) – Yosemite National Park expanded a warning about the deadly hantavirus to 230,000 more recent visitors and confirmed on Thursday that a ninth person had contracted the virus, which has already killed three people.The Californian, the latest person confirmed to have been infected with hant

People with highly stressful jobs but little real control over decision making are running a 23% increased risk of a heart attack, according to authoritative research.Many people in today’s world, where the pace of life is fast and money is tight, may consider themselves stressed at work, but the de

(Reuters) – Britain launched a public consultation on Monday to ask whether controversial “three-parent” fertility treatments should be available to families hoping to avoid passing on incurable diseases.The potential treatments, currently only at research stage in laboratories in Britain and the Un

The number of complaints made to the General Medical Council about doctors has risen 23% in the past year, the regulator says.The GMC report showed there were 8,781 in 2011 compared to 7,153 in 2010.The rise is similar to the one the year before and continues a trend which has seen complaints jump b

(Reuters Health) – People who smoke or drink heavily may develop pancreatic cancer at an earlier age than folks who avoid those habits, a new study suggests.It’s long been known that smoking is a risk factor for developing pancreatic cancer – a disease that is rarely caught early and has a grim prog

(Reuters Health) – The short-term benefits of weight loss surgery are well known in severely obese people, but a new study finds that improvements in diabetes and blood pressure may hold up for years after the procedures.At six-year patient follow-ups, three quarters of people who’d undergone gastri

(Reuters) – Cuts in global funding for Eastern Europe and Central Asia are undermining the fight against tuberculosis (TB) and the AIDS virus, threatening to push already high rates of disease and drug-resistance even higher, experts said on Wednesday.In a report by leading European non-governmental