Helen McArdle

A few weeks ago I had coffee with a doctor visiting the UK from Sweden who was researching the future of healthcare systems in Europe, with the NHS as a test case. After a while, we got onto the topic of how hospitals and social care intersect and the peculiarities of how the latter is organised and funded.

Patients who miss multiple GP appointments are being wrongly portrayed as "irresponsible" and fining them for no-shows would only make the situation worse, a researcher has warned.

Too many beds in the NHS are being filled by patients who no longer need to be there.

Staff shortages, broken equipment and soaring demand are leading to "devastating delays" for cancer patients, with one in five people waiting more than 84 days to start treatment. The latest report on cancer waiting times in Scotland shows that just 70.4% of cancer patients started treatment within the target time of 62 days of an urgent referral for tests between January and March this year.

A Scots teen with a rare and potentially fatal condition which causes excruciating pain when she eats is heading to Germany for a £90,000 surgery which could finally cure her. Emma Noble, 17, was diagnosed with multiple disorders including Wilkies syndrome - where part of the blood supply to small intestine is obstructed - after visiting a world-renowned specialist in Leipzig earlier this year.

In a speech to the BMA’s 2024 Annual Representatives Meeting in Belfast, Dr Iain Kennedy, chair of Scottish Council is to issue a warning that the “very existence of a national health service as we know it” is under threat.

The last time I was in Rome, I was a 19-year-old inter-railing around Europe with university friends. This time my accommodation would be Palazzo Fiuggi, a luxurious medical wellness retreat. On the downside, there would be no pizza.

With less than two weeks left before voters head to the poll to elect the next UK Government, one of the biggest political footballs up for debate is - as ever - the future of the NHS.

Fasting diets were in their heyday when I first embarked on the 5:2 back in March 2014.  My weight had been creeping up and by then I was officially "overweight", with a body mass index of 26, and I was finally determined to do something about it.

Patients with chronic pain and other long-term conditions will be "prescribed" a list of seasonal outdoor activities such as listening to birdsong as a pilot project is extended to Orkney.  The 'Nature Prescriptions' initiative has previously been trialled in Edinburgh and Shetland as a way of improving patients physical and mental wellbeing by engaging more with nature.