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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Society

  • Rishi Sunak at a podium seen through crowd of onlookers

    Sunak’s disability benefit plans are familiar culture war fodder

  • Doctors consulting room. England. UK<br>G8CYJD Doctors consulting room. England. UK

    Tell us your experience of being signed off work with a mental health condition

    We would like to hear about your experiences of being signed off work due to a mental health condition and how you found the process
  • Closeup of a packet of cigarettes

    Logical step or overreach? Guardian readers share their views on Sunak’s smoking ban

    While most who wrote in favoured some sort of action to reduce the damage caused by tobacco, some warned about the UK becoming a ‘nanny state’
  • A woman with her back to the camera looks out of large windows on a house. She is wearing a jumper and has her hands in her pockets.

    Carers describe ‘avalanche of utter stress’ from DWP clawing back benefits

  • Vivienne Groom and her partner, Geoff, sit looking at the camera with solemn expressions.

    ‘We’re already vulnerable’: the carers told to repay huge sums by the DWP

  • Teenage girl in red leather jacket and sunglasses smiles into cameras as she holds up a lit cigarette and a drink with crowd behind her

    Saving us from ourselves: how Britain is learning to accept the nanny state

  • Lemn Sissay seated with his hands resting on the table in front of him

    Lemn Sissay: ‘brilliant’ plans to improve child social care ignored by ministers

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Interviews & opinion

  • Dr Hilary Cass

    ‘Children are being used as a football’: Hilary Cass on her review of gender identity services

  • Arwa Mahdawi

    There is a perfect time to shower – and it’s not when you think

    Arwa Mahdawi
  • Lisa Mosconi

    Neurology professor Lisa Mosconi: ‘Menopause is a renovation project on the brain’

  • Hilary Osborne

    I was stunned when diagnosed with cancer. Then I had to work out how to tell my son

    Hilary Osborne
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In mind: focus on mental health

  • Peyo the horse licks the hands of Roger, a patient at the palliative care centre at Calais Hospital.

    ‘Doctor Peyo’: the horse comforting cancer patients in Calais – in pictures

  • illustration

    An illness in the shadows: life with borderline personality disorder

    BPD is one of the mental illnesses we still know least about, but now there is hope of a treatment
  • Yoni Yehuda, an Israeli psychotherapist, with Jack Daniels.

    Cats, camels and a Jesus lizard: the rise of animal-assisted therapy

    Once considered eccentric, using animals in psychotherapy is becoming popular as research reveals benefits
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My working week

  • A woman waits in the shadows

    My working week: ‘I wonder who buys sex from the vulnerable women I try to help’

  • ‘Minor changes make a big difference for disabled people.’

    My working week: 'Julie is disabled and the only one in her team made redundant'

  • GPs have had to adapt patient care during the pandemic.

    My working week: 'A patient arrives at my GP surgery with Covid symptoms'

  • ‘Faith feels lost after the removal of her children. So much of what she knows about herself is as a mother.’ Picture posed by model.

    My working week: 'Fiona's son was taken into care a year ago. Today is his birthday'

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Health

  • Rishi Sunak stands at a podium at the Centre for Social Justice.

    Welfare
    Sunak accused of making mental illness ‘another front in the culture wars’

  • Silhoutte of a man with clouds and water

    Mental health
    Professionals know that mental health is complex – and that MDMA won’t help

    Letters: The suggestion that the drug may be more helpful than regulated care for mental ill health is dangerous, writes Dr Rachel McNulty
  • Rishi Sunak says the UK needs to change the 'sicknote culture' as he announces fresh curbs on disability benefits

    0:55

    Welfare
    UK needs to change 'sicknote culture': Sunak targets disability benefits – video

    Rishi Sunak says the UK needs to change the 'sicknote culture' as he announces fresh curbs on disability benefits

  • New Zealand
    How New Zealand’s smoking ban got stubbed out – and what the UK can learn from it

  • Welfare
    Sunak accused of launching ‘full-on assault on disabled people’

Blood, sweat & tears

  • Patient receiving chemotherapy

    Watching my cancer patients go through treatment alone is heartbreaking

    Lucy Gossage
    Covid-19 has made this year tougher for those experiencing treatment and those of us who work in cancer care
  • Surgery

    I tried to take my life five years ago. Now I'm grateful to be alive

    Anonymous surgeon
  • Emergency service ambulance with blue lights flashing

    There's a patient I'll never forget. Their burns and screams still haunt me

    Anonymous
  • A protestor outside the Scottish parliament building

    My husband is in a care home. I visit him for 30 minutes each week in a car park

    Anonymous
  • Catherine Pointer University of Southampton general hospital

    I was diagnosed with cancer at 14. Now I work alongside a doctor who treated me

    Catherine Pointer
  • Anonymous as told to Sarah Johnson

    I'm disabled but was told I won't receive critical care if I get Covid. It's terrifying

    Anonymous as told to Sarah Johnson
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Social care

  • Zoe Williams

    Of course a society that demonises poverty will try to prosecute vulnerable, unpaid carers

    Zoe Williams
  • Terri White

    Sure Start could have changed everything for my family. Labour must be brave – and revitalise it

    Terri White
  • A female carer holds the hand of an elderly woman in a wheelchair

    DWP warns carers they could face greater penalties if they appeal against fines

  • Woman opening an empty wallet

    Unpaid carers lose out in benefits gap

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Central & local government

  • Sign for Whitehall in central London.

    Former civil servant says ‘racism in Cabinet Office’ forced her to resign

  • Andy Street wearing pink tie standing inside an empty train holding on to a pole in an aisle.

    Andy Street ditches Tories in West Midlands mayoral campaign material

  • A dark corridor in temporary housing accommodation supplied to a mother and children.

    ‘Rat bites and chronic asthma’: schools on frontline of UK housing crisis

  • Kemi Badenoch leaving Downing Street

    Kemi Badenoch to oppose smoking ban in blow to Sunak’s authority

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Voluntary sector

  • Warwick Davis and his wife, Samantha, centre, with Harrison, left, and Annabelle in London in 2022.

    ‘My soul mate’: Warwick Davis pays tribute to wife Samantha who has died aged 53

  • A pensioner's hand in front of an electric fire

    Leak reveals Tory plan to cut cold weather cash for disabled people

  • Gaza auction composite: Olivia Colman, Paul mescal, Susan Sarandon

    Susan Sarandon, Olivia Colman and Paul Mescal join star donors of Cinema for Gaza auction

  • Crew onboard an RNLI lifeboat pick up people in an inflatable boat who were travelling across the English Channel.

    RNLI says volunteers saved 355 lives last year, with London stations the busiest

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Housing

  • Man standing on side of his canal boat wearing socks.

    Fee hikes will price us out of canals, say houseboaters in England and Wales

    • Jack Kramme

      Bed bugs and cockroaches: the legal battle over conditions in a Melbourne community housing block

    • Someone sealing up packing box

      Forced home moves cost renters over half a billion pounds a year

    • Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Angela Rayner visit a distillery to learn more about the importance of the industry and to talk about Labour’s New Deal for Working People. Diageo’s Glenkinchie Distillery, Pencaitland, Tranent East Lothian, Scotland UK 02/02/2024 © COPYRIGHT PHOTO BY MURDO MACLEOD All Rights Reserved Tel + 44 131 669 9659 Mobile +44 7831 504 531 Email: m@murdophoto.com STANDARD TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY See details at http://www.murdophoto.com/T%26Cs.html No syndication, no redistribution. A22U4Y, sgealbadh, A22R4S

      Tory ‘attack dog’ reheats failed ploy used against Starmer to go for Rayner

    • French gendarmes stand by as people leave the squat in an abandoned bus company headquarters

      Hundreds evicted from France’s biggest squat months before Paris Olympics

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