Some shortages are so serious they are imperilling the health and even lives of patients with serious illnesses, pharmacy bosses say

Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found.

The number of warnings drug companies have issued about impending supply problems for certain products has more than doubled from 648 in 2020 to 1,634 last year.

Use of powerful medications linked to elevated risk of serious adverse outcomes including heart failure

Doctors are being urged to reduce prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to dementia patients after the largest study of its kind found they were linked to more harmful side-effects than previously thought.

The powerful medications are widely prescribed for behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia such as apathy, depression, aggression, anxiety, irritability, delirium and psychosis. Tens of thousands of dementia patients in England are prescribed them every year.

Like many young people, I have no hope of finding an NHS dentist – and this is only deepening class divisions

• This article won the 16-18 age category of the Guardian Foundation’s 2024 Hugo Young award, which champions political opinion writing

When I was 12 my childhood dentist went private. It was 2018 and I’d just had a consultation with my orthodontist, and had been told I would need at least two teeth removed before my braces could be fitted. My options were: pay (a minimum of) £55 for each tooth extraction, or find a new dentist on the NHS. By pure luck, I was accepted at a different practice. I had my teeth out, then one routine exam, before I received a letter saying that my new dentist had also gone private and I would have to start paying for treatment. I haven’t seen a dentist since.

As of 2024, no practices in Cornwall, where I live, are taking on new NHS patients above the age of 18. With lengthy NHS waiting lists and my 18th birthday rapidly approaching, it’s unlikely that I will ever see an NHS dentist again, unless some serious reform occurs. I’m not alone: thousands of patients in Cornwall are increasingly losing hope of seeing a dentist.

Beth Riding is an A-level student in Cornwall

Health Foundation report also predicts people in poorest areas will be three times more likely to die by the age of 70

A record 3.7 million workers in England will have a major illness by 2040, according to research .

On current trends, 700,000 more working-age adults will be living with high healthcare needs or substantial risk of mortality by 2040 – up nearly 25% from 2019 levels, according to a report by the Health Foundation charity.

At an ambulance dispatch centre in Kent, I saw the scale of the task that lies ahead of Labour to restore the nation’s health

This is a sick country, getting sicker. NHS waits will take years to clear, if at all. While people wait, they get sicker. When more and more people slip into absolute poverty – a fifth of people now – they get even sicker. More sicken as they age, and that peak has not yet been reached. Every part of the NHS feels at the sharp end, coping mostly because, amazingly, they just do, even with no end in sight to the stress.

NHS data released last week on people waiting more than 18 weeks with serious heart problems suggests some will probably die before they get treatment. When waiting patients have heart attacks and strokes they call an ambulance – so there’s been an astonishing 7% rise in those category 1 calls, says Saoirse Mallorie, senior analyst at the Kings Fund.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Government under pressure to respond to Cass review which questioned medical basis for prescribing puberty blockers

There is no case for closing Scotland’s only clinic to offer treatment to gender-questioning young people, Humza Yousaf has said, amid calls for the Scottish government to halt the service in the wake of the Cass review.

The Sandyford clinic, based in Glasgow, offers a range of services including emergency contraception, abortion and support for sexual assault victims as well as transgender healthcare.

Lib Dems and health trusts say patient and staff safety being put at risk by poor state of ageing infrastructure

Millions of patients are being put at risk in crumbling hospitals that are unfit for purpose, MPs have said, as figures reveal more than 2,000 NHS buildings are older than the health service itself.

Health bosses have repeatedly warned ministers of the urgent need to plough cash into replacing rundown buildings in order to protect the safety of patients and staff. The maintenance backlog has risen to £11.6bn in England.

Readers weigh up Labour’s plans to use the private health sector to reduce the NHS backlog

Re Wes Streeting’s ambitions ( Wes Streeting defends Labour plan to use private sector to cut NHS backlog, 12 April ), I worked two sessions a week as a GP specialist in endoscopy at our local NHS hospital. Two things were a constant source of irritation. First, the work was poorly remunerated and did not cover my absence from my practice. Second, the lists I worked were sub-optimally organised, with elective outpatient cases mixed with emergency inpatient cases, causing several patients long waits on the day of their endoscopy.

Consequently, myself and colleagues established our own community endoscopy service purely for NHS patients. From the start we offered transnasal gastroscopy, which is relatively new, results in less gagging, and seldom needed sedation. We developed a seamless referral service to secondary care for those who were discovered to have cancer to avoid any delays in assessment and treatment. From the start, our mantra was service, quality and training. It is a fine model of an innovative private service that is offering first-class care to the NHS.

Critics say by working for Norfolk and Suffolk NHS trust, Dr Dan Poulter cannot hold it to account effectively

Families bereaved after failures by a troubled NHS mental health trust have expressed concern that a local MP has taken a second job there as a paid clinician.

Norfolk and Suffolk foundation trust (NSFT) has been rated as “inadequate” four times since austerity cuts were made in 2013, at a time when Dr Dan Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, was a junior health minister in the coalition government.