For the last 5 years, pathology services at Guy's and St Thomas and King's College Hospital's have been managed by Viapath, a for-profit company formed between SERCO and the two hospital Trusts. Since the takeover by Viapath, the service has been plagued by problems; chronic understaffing, inability to recruit and retain, reduced training, closure of vital services and massive financial losses. Now the remaining NHS staff in the service face being transferred out of the NHS on the 1st January 2015. We oppose the transfer of staff and believe that to guarantee a quality and safe service for patients, the staff should remain part of the NHS, and all pathology services should be brought back into the NHS. The alternative is a the running down of a vital service for patients, and the loss of highly skilled and experienced staff. SERCO is a company notorious for poor services, bad employment practices and is being investigated for defrauding the government on other outsourcing contracts. Their involvement in the NHS can only jeopardise patient safety and damage the hospital’s reputation.

Cystic Fibrosis is a condition that affects over 10,000 people in the UK, patients consume a large amount of Antibiotics over their shortened lifespans. Cystic Fibrosis is only missing from the "exempt from prescription charges" list because when the list was written, no one over the age of 18 was alive with the condition. A shocking justification for harvesting cash of patients who have no control over the prescriptions they are issued. It is unfair that a lot of less serious conditions get all prescriptions for free, while CF sufferers cannot get vital drugs without a cost.

There is growing evidence that these Mobile Phone Masts cause illness and cancers to the local population and animals

Early detection could save hundreds of lives as there are only a few warning signs that the man may already have this disease. Women are given cervical and breast screening on a regular basis, why not do the blood test for men

The Prime Minister has pledged that everyone should be able to see a GP 8am-8pm seven days a week. Despite this, NHS England have decided that from next September, two GP practices in Tower Hamlets which currently open these hours, the Barkantine Practice and St Andrews Health Centre, will only open 8am-6.30pm Monday-Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturday. Similar cuts will affect hundreds of practices nationally. Along with 30-40% funding cuts, this means that these practices and others will struggle to stay open at all. Please do not allow these surgeries to close. Reverse the cuts and allow GP Surgeries to continue to provide the excellent services their patients benefit from.

Many people have an allergy to these chemicals and have developed dermatitis and eczema as adults for the first time since these chemicals were approved and began to be used by manufacturers. Some manufacturers list all ingredients on the labels, thus allowing people who realise they are sensitive to the products to avoid them, but a lot more don't list this ingredient although it is included. It also seems that many manufacturers are switching to these chemicals which means that a product which has been tolerated will suddenly become a problem. (image credit, of simple dermatitis: By James Heilman, MD (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Whilst new therapies are expensive for children and adults with ultra orphan diseases the number affected in England are usually in the tens and never total more than 500 affected individuals. These ultra rare diseases affect many organs of the body and usually result in death in childhood or early adulthood. Today even though the European Medicines Agency gave Marketing Approval for an Enzyme Replacement Therapy for children and young adults with MPSIVA, Morquio disease in April 2014 and the health departments in France, Germany, Austria, Italy and even Turkey are paying for Morquio sufferers to receive Enzyme Replacement Therapy, 77 children and adults in England are denied Enzyme Replacement Therapy and to be treated at home.

Like many other people who watched the news on Wednesday 5th November, I was shocked by the article on children and young adults with autism locked away by councils in institutions across the country, far away from their families, where they were bullied and mocked by staff and in one case attacked by a fellow inpatient with a history of committing murder. As a nation we should protect these doubly vulnerable young people: under age and with mental health issues. We need to increase spending in this area so that preventative care can be given in the community; so that care homes are radically improved, and made available locally where needed; so that the people working in them can be properly vetted (salaries in the care industry generally need to increase hugely - not just those of managers, but workers on the ground) and finally so that there are sufficient facilities that children can be housed according to their needs, e.g. children with records of violence (especially of murder) housed separately to those without histories of violence. If bullying does take place the staff involved should be sacked, not simply 'retrained', but this can only happen if staff are paid a higher wage, their working conditions improved and there isn't such a dearth of people in the sector. On a separate but related note: the law which prevents parents from visiting their own children in these institutions should be reconsidered.

i have been a carer since 1993 with very little recognition or reward is time for this to change as the 6.5 million carers save the government 120 billion per year this Government will have saved 600 billion by the election by denying carers what all other workers have. its time that changed for good

So that silence cannot be bought by managers of the NHS for their own benefit. For example, the Baby P case.

This effectively removes the main option for exercise in the local area for anyone without a considerable income (whom already have many private fitness options). There are no other alternatives in Saltash. It will add to the UK's obesity problem, effectively costing the council more in the long run. It's a terrible idea that isn't thought through at all, this ruthless cost cutting jeapordises the health of Saltash residents.

Latest Update: The first specification outlines have been released and it is still 70% theory! Now it is 60% Exam 10% written coursework and still only 30% Practical! Following the consultation regarding changes to GCSE PE (in which the opinions of PE teachers seem to have been completely ignored) the government are forcing incredibly damaging changes to GCSE PE which will have far reaching impacts right down to year 7 PE lessons. They have decided that the course will change from the current 60% practical 40% theory to 30% practical and 70% theory! This change will almost completely take the physical/practical aspect out of Physical Education. They are also proposing to massively narrow the activities that students can use as the practical element (moving to a much more traditional / Public school offering of activities). The impact of this will mean a narrowing of the activities offered by secondary schools which will feed down through the year groups. The move to an almost solely theoretical course will also have an impact on the activity level of students in PE lessons, due to schools trying to maximise the performance of students by focussing much more on theory lessons rather than actually being physically active and taking part in sport. This will have long lasting and damaging effects on the health and fitness of future generations. The changes will also take away another avenue for students who are less academic to be successful and get a qualification in an area that they may wish to follow as a career. If these changes go through then many schools may choose to no longer offer Physical Education as a GCSE and the change to the GCSE PE course may well be the final nail in the coffin for physical education in secondary schools, if people do not force a change of direction.