Extreme heat is now one of the defining public health challenges of a warming world, explains Prof IAN WILLIAMS
ANTI-POVERTY campaigners have notched up an astonishing 67,000 signatories to a petition calling on Amber Rudd’s department to stop sending misleading letters to doctors about welfare claimants.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are sending GPs letters claiming that their patients do not need a “fit note” anymore because they have been found fit for work.
Campaigners say this letter is leaving severely ill and disabled claimants unable to obtain Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) to which they are entitled pending appeal.
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE


