Key SummaryNHS serves Christmas cheer through thousands of festive meals Catering teams work behind the scenes to support patients and staff A heartfelt tradition, powered by dedication and care NHS England serves hearty Christmas dinners and desserts for its patients and staff.234,000 dinners and pudding will be provided to everyone on Christmas day.The NHS catering teams are making this initiative come true.The catering team at Stepping Hill Hospital at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust are preparing 750 of these meals.In a LinkedIn post, NHS England said, “On Christmas Day, they will roast around 50 kilos of turkey, 60 kilos of potatoes, 12 kilos of pigs in blankets, 25 kilos of parsnips, 20 kilos of sprouts and 650 chocolate tarts.”They added, “Thank you to NHS catering teams across the country for cooking up a feast this Christmas.”Similar initiatives were reported across other NHS trusts.At Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, around 3,000 staff would be on duty at Frimley Park, Wexham Park and Heatherwood hospitals, as well as at several satellite sites on Christmas, BBC reports.The catering teams are preparing 1,000 full Christmas lunches for staff and up to 1,500 for patients.This Christmas also marks 25 glorious years of Kim Ashcroft, a hospital caterer who prepares Christmas meals for patients, visitors, as well as frontline staff at North Tyneside General Hospital.She has been making sure everyone at the hospital gets the joy of Christmas through her meals for the past quarter of a century.She works tirelessly on Christmas day to serve breakfast for everyone at the hospital, says the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation rust.

The NHS is taking tough action against incompetence and has let go a record number of staff on 'capability' grounds.There were around 7,000 dismissals in 2024-25, up from about 4,000 two years ago and a record since figures were first collected in 2011, according to media reports.More than half of these were capability-related terminations, which, as per the NHS guidelines, happen when employees cannot meet the fundamental requirements of their position.The other commonly stated grounds for dismissal include misconduct and redundancy.The NHS England had, in September, introduced a football-style league table, a quarterly ranking system for its trusts.The top performers have been accorded more freedom on how they spend their money and those lower down are encouraged to learn from the best trusts and receive support from national officials.Health secretary Wes Streeting had then warned that NHS managers failing to meet standards in the league tables would face dismissal.Gareth Lyon, the head of health and social care at think tank Policy Exchange, has welcomed the shift in approach.He wants the NHS to "significantly up its game" and take a more rigorous approach towards performance management.A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman has said that performance management was essential and early intervention and proper support for staff will "prevent performance issues arising in the first place."

Key Summary Flu cases and hospital admissions are easing across the UK RSV and Covid remain mostly stable, but pressures haven’t disappeared Experts warn festive gatherings could trigger another surgeThe UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) latest surveillance report shows that there is a fall in the number of flu cases and hospital admissions.The UKHSA data for December 15-21 stated that flu circulation has now dropped to medium levels, 17.2 per cent from last week’s 21.1 per cent.Flu hospitalisation numbers have also gone down to 7.85 per 100,000 from 9.98 last week.Similarly, the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) infections are also spreading at medium levels with a decreased number of emergency department attendances for acute bronchiolitis.However, the weekly hospital admission rates for RSV have risen to 4.07 per 100,000 from the previous week’s 3.63.The Covid-19 situation is reported stable with a 1.6 per cent decrease is cases and a 0.91 per 100,000 hospital admissions.The Covid-19 ICU admissions have also remained low this week.However, experts warn the large gatherings during the festival season could lead to spikes, and advised people to take precautions.UKHSA consultant epidemiologist Dr Jamie Lopez-Bernal said the decline in flu cases was ‘encouraging news’ but sounded a note of caution.“Flu is always unpredictable, is still circulating and could bounce back even further in the new year as we have seen in past years.”

Titan PMR’s chief executive Tariq Muhammad has launched a parliament petition seeking to stop pharmacies from re-nominating patients' electronic prescription service (EPS) without their consent.The petition has called for a ban on the technology that enables pharmacies to auto-renominate EPS patients in bulk, to increase patient numbers and revenue."We want the government to explicitly ban NHS system suppliers, by law, from providing any technology that may enable pharmacies to switch patient EPS nominations without informed and current consent, or in bulk using automation, and make it illegal for pharmacies to engage in this practice."There have been reports that some pharmacies are changing the nominated pharmacy without patient consent or knowledge, and automatically renominating themselves in bulk using the technology available to them."This can result in confusion, inefficiency and delays to medication supplies. We believe it greatly impacts patient care and puts the EPS infrastructure at risk," the petition said.The deadline for the petition is June 19.The Community Pharmacy England (CPE) had earlier expressed concern about this issue and said it had received numerous complaints.The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) also said that it has taken serious note of the complaints regarding patients' NHS EPS nominations getting changed without their consent.Apart from causing unnecessary delays in receiving medication, it also amounts to a misuse of sensitive patient information in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it added.The regulator stated that a patient's choice is fundamental to the care they receive and is based on informed consent.The patients must give informed, explicit consent if they want to change their nominated pharmacy.They should not be influenced, persuaded or incentivised to nominate a specific pharmacy.GPhC had warned that if these principles are disregarded, they will treat it as misconduct and take action.

Key SummaryMillions now rely on the NHS App for everyday care Prescriptions, records and appointments are being managed at record levels The app is central to the NHS’s shift towards digital-first healthcare As the government tries to move the NHS from analogue to digital, its flagship app has now garnered over 39 million registered users, who are using it to access its services.From 1 December, 2024 to 30 November, 2025, 67.8 million repeat prescriptions were ordered through the app.In the month of November, there were 62.3 million logins for the NHS App, a 43 percent increase on the monthly average over the past 12 months.In the same month, there were 20.8 million views of GP health records, 6.6 million appointments managed for hospital and other secondary care services, and 6.3 million repeat prescriptions.The usage during the last Christmas was 313,000, with an average of more than 200 logins every minute.The NHS this year launched an Amazon-style prescription tracker that covered around 2,000 pharmacies, and lets patients find out when their medications are ready to be collected.The NHS App will also play a key part in the new NHS Online service, which is due to launch in 2027.Using NHS Online service patients will be able to book specialists from around the country online, without leaving their home or having to wait longer for a face-to-face appointment.The NHS has also listed 12 services the app users can use during this Christmas.“The NHS is there for people all day, every day and it’s great to see that over 300,000 people opened up the NHS App on Christmas Day last year to get the help they needed,” said Jules Hunt, interim director general for Technology, Digital and Data.Hunt added that users can log into the app over the festive season to take advantage of the range of features it now offers.“From prescription trackers to family features, we’ve upgraded the app this year to make it more helpful, and we are striving to deliver more improvements in the New Year as we build towards the launch of the NHS virtual hospital,” said Health Innovation minister Dr Zubir Ahmed.