Neil Brown and Katy Wright on life after being diagnosed with the condition

I fully support Jeremy Paxman’s position in presenting the government with the Parky Charter and its five recommendations ( Jeremy Paxman says Parkinson’s ‘makes you wish you hadn’t been born’, 11 April ). I also agree with him that the charter will have “no effect whatsoever” on this cold and uncaring government (my words).

But I’m surprised and appalled by his statement that Parkinson’s disease “makes you wish you hadn’t been born”. I was diagnosed with the condition six years ago, and from what I’ve seen of Paxman (in his excellent documentary about Parkinson’s last year), I’m probably at a similar stage to him as the disease worsens.

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Would a £35,000 holiday help you live longer or just leave you bankrupt? A surprising number of people are paying to find out

Name: Longevity vacations.

Age: New, but I’ll be older, hopefully.

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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

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The cycle of busy periods, burnout and recovery has started to feel grimly predictable. Are we doomed to repeat it forever – or can we develop immunity?

I burned out for the first time at the age of 18. I was studying part-time, working part-time and writing on the side, amounting to more than a full-time workload. I was also partying most nights, wanting to make the most of the last of my student days – and needing to blow off steam.

I thought I was handling the tightrope act pretty well, and in terms of output, I was. But one day, when I turned up to my office job, something about my frazzled response to my boss’s friendly inquiry about my day prompted her to pry further.

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Providers are optimistic for a different future for abortion in the state even as Republicans flounder in their response

The waiting room of the Acacia Women’s Center in Phoenix, Arizona, was calm and quiet on Friday. Patients sat with their mothers, friends or partners, paying no mind to the slapstick Tyler Perry movie on the TV and an arrangement of Vogue magazines resting on a table.

It had been three days since the state’s highest court reinstated an 1864 law that would ban almost all abortions and send abortion providers to prison for up to five years.

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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.

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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

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Co-authors say ‘no-regrets policy’ would save consumers €2.8bn a year while cutting emissions by 48m tonnes

Healthier ready-to-eat meals could cut EU emissions by 48m tonnes annually and save customers €2.8bn (£2.4bn) each year, as well as reducing disease, a report has found.

Fast food and ready meals provide more than a sixth of the EU’s calories but contain far more salt and meat than doctors recommend, according to an analysis from the consultancy Systemiq commissioned by environmental nonprofit organisations Fern and Madre Brava.

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